MOSCOW, December 17. /TASS/. Twenty-three years ago in essence Crimea was appropriated by Ukraine, Russian State Duma (lower house) Speaker Sergey Naryshkin said on Wednesday.

“Twenty-three years ago in essence Crimea was annexed by Ukraine ‘on the quiet’ of the collapse of the Soviet Union. But Ukraine’s sovereignty in the peninsula remained as a minimum disputable for Crimean residents themselves,” he said.

At the same time, Naryshkin said: “From the point of view of international law, the transfer of Crimea to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic was null.”