SIMFEROPOL, December 10. /TASS/. The conclusions the International Criminal Court (ICC) put forward in its account on Crimea have nothing to do with reality, Crimea’s head Sergei Aksyonov said.
"The International Criminal Court published a report on the preliminary examination of imaginary human rights violations in Crimea, according to media reports. This report refers, in particular, to murders, torture, abductions and other criminal offences. I believe the words ‘examination’ and ‘court’ are inappropriate here, since they imply at least familiarizing [oneself] with the situation, listening to both parties and providing some rock-solid facts. There is nothing of the kind [there]," Aksyonov wrote on his VKontakte page on Tuesday, adding that all the accusations were baseless and were out of touch with reality on the peninsula.
"It’s enough to point out that more than 50,000 residents of Ukraine moved to our region to permanently reside, where, according to the authors of that report, human rights are violated. Another million citizens from the neighboring country come to spend their vacations [in Crimea] every year," he noted.
After the 2014 coup in Ukraine, Crimean and Sevastopol officials held a referendum, in which 96.7% of Crimeans and 95.6% of Sevastopol voters chose to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. On March 18, 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the reunification deal, which Russia’s Federal Assembly (parliament) approved on March 21. Despite the convincing results of the referendum, Kiev, along with Western countries, refused to recognize Crimea as part of Russia.