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Crimea and Sevastopol

Kiev denounces Crimea and Sevastopol elections as illegitimate

Crimea and Sevastopol were and will remain an integral part of the sovereign state of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry says in a statement

Vote counting in Crimea ITAR-TASS/Mikhail Pochuyev

Vote counting in Crimea

© ITAR-TASS/Mikhail Pochuyev

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United Russia wins 70 out of 75 seats in Crimean parliament — preliminary count

KIEV, September 15. /ITAR-TASS/. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry on Monday dismissed State Council elections in Crimea and the Russian federal city of Sevastopol on Sunday as "illegitimate".

"Results of the elections will have no possible impact on the current autonomous republic status of Crimea and Sevastopol," a ministry statement said.

"Crimea and Sevastopol were and will remain an integral part of the sovereign state of Ukraine, subject to Ukraine's constitution and its legislation. The results are illegitimate from the legal viewpoint," the ministry added.

Elections in Crimea and Sevastopol

Rebuffing Ukraine's attack on the territory's first elections since it joined the Russian Federation on March 16, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said the event proved the legality of political processes in Russia. “All the participants of the election campaign in Crimea have shown to us and our neighbors that the power in Russia is based on legal procedures,” the Russian prime minister said.

Medvedev, who leads the ruling United Russia party, said that during “the first voting day in Crimea, all the democratic guarantees enshrined in the Russian Constitution worked”. He said various parties “actively participated in forming the new element of our political system on the (Crimean) Peninsula”.

Medvedev praised the decision to hold the election before the end of the transition period in the region, which will last until January 1, 2015. “No region in this country can develop without new modern power, including the Crimean Republic and Sevastopol,” Medvedev said.

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Crimea and Sevastopol Ukraine Dmitry Medvedev Sevastopol

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Moscow used its new Oreshnik medium-range hypersonic ballistic missile in response to the West’s decision to authorize strategic-depth strikes on Russia

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Oreshnik missile to go into serial production, Putin says

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Trump to tap Richard Grenell as US special envoy on Ukraine — agency

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Putin says Oreshnik missile system cutting-edge innovation by Russia, not Soviet byproduct

The Russian Defense Ministry announced earlier in the day that the country’s latest Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile hit all the targets at a major Ukrainian military-industrial enterprise in Dnepr (Dnepropetrovsk) with its MIRVed warheads

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Russian ambassador says UK prime minister doesn’t understand situation in Ukraine

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Russia fires ballistic, non-nuclear-tipped missile at Ukrainian aerospace plant — Putin

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Ex-German chancellor never expected Russia to tolerate Ukraine’s NATO membership — memoir

Angela Merkel added that another fallacy was the belief that the status "would act as a deterrent," and that Moscow "would accept these developments without taking action"

US admiral says Washington should be ready for talks with Russia, China

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Biden’s decision to use ATACMS against Russia may 'blow up in America’s face' — US expert

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Press review: Russia fires missile at Ukraine plant and Biden forgives Kiev $4.65 bln debt

Top stories from the Russian press on Friday, November 22nd

Lukashenko grants asylum to Schmidt persecuted on political grounds by Poland

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Diplomat mocks US Senator for talking about invading Netherlands

Maria Zakharova quoted the US Senator, who called the ICC a "Kangaroo court" and ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan a "deranged fanatic"

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Ukrainian defense line in Donbass may soon collapse — expert

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US not seeking confrontation with Russia, but will continue assistance to Kiev — Pentagon

Department of Defense Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh also claimed that Washington, while helping Ukraine, is not attempting to turn the conflict into a large-scale regional confrontation that spills beyond the country’s borders

China against double standards in international law — Foreign Ministry

Spokesman Lin Jian highlighted Washington's use of double standards in handling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict within the United Nations

Zelensky begs ‘for his country to be flattened’ — US journalist

"Ukraine should be forever grateful that President Putin is calm, rational and kind - because Zelensky is practically begging for his country to be flattened," American political commentator Jackson Hinkle said

Japanese government refrains from commenting on Russia’s latest hypersonic missile

At the same time, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi once again criticized Russia’s actions in Ukraine

Russia entitled to use weapons against military sites of states attacking it — Duma

"Russia has repeatedly stated that such actions will receive a response – and it will be a stronger one," Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin stressed

Russia’s reaction to Austrian OMV’s failure to pay for gas justified — MFA

The company stated it would seek damages amounting to 230 million euro for failing to receive the contracted volume of gas from the Russian company for delivery to Germany