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Crimea and Sevastopol

Russia’s State Duma to issue statement on situation in Republic of Crimea on Tuesday

The State Duma is going to voice support for the people of Crimea in their determination to reunite with Russia

© ITAR-TASS/Sergey Fadeichev

MOSCOW, March 18. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia’s State Duma on Tuesday will consider a draft statement entitled On the Situation in Crimea, presented to it on behalf of the leaders of all four parliamentary factions and lower house speaker Sergei Narsyhkin.

The State Duma is going to voice support for the people of Crimea in their determination to reunite with Russia.

“As it hails the will of the people of Crimea expressed in the March 16, 2014 referendum in favour of including the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol in the Russian Federation, the State Duma proceeds from the understanding that the bodies of state power operating in Crimea’s territory shall be supporting inter-confessional accord and language diversity in the republic,” the proposed statement runs.

For their part the Russian legislators wish to declare that they will promote the socio-economic development of Crimea and the well-being of its population during the transitional period.”

“The State Duma will be promoting the security of all people present in Crimea’s territory irrespective of their citizenship, nationality, language or religious affiliation and the observance of their legitimate rights and freedoms,” the draft statement runs.

In Crimea’s plebiscite of March 16 the voters were asked to choose between two questions: “Are you for the reunification of Crimea with Russia in the capacity of a constituent territory of the Russian Federation?” and “Are you for the restoration of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Crimea and for Crimea’s status as part of Ukraine?”

The head of the Crimean legislature’s referendum organization commission, Mikhail Malyshev, said that according to the final returns the idea of reunification with Russia received the backing of 96.77 percent. The turnout totalled 1,274,096, or 83.1 percent of those eligible to vote.

Russian President Vladimir Putin in the evening of March 17 signed a decree to recognize the Republic of Crimea as a sovereign and independent state.

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