UNITED NATIONS, July 28. /TASS/. Ukraine plans offering the UN Security Council to pass a statement in response to the Russian authorities’ decision to include Crimea in the Southern Federal District of Russia, Vladimir Yelchenko, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UN told reporters on Thursday.

He said he would circulate the official reaction of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry at the Security Council soon and would inform Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on his country’s position.

"We plan to propose the Security Council to issue a statement on the problem," Yelchenko said.

The presumable statement will reaffirm support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and will mention a resolution of the UN General Assembly on the issue. The latter document called on countries of the world to ignore the results of the March 16, 2014 referendum where the residents of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol voted overwhelmingly for reunification with Russia.

Earlier on Thursday, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on merging the Southern and Crimean Federal Districts into the Southern Federal District, which embraces from now on the Republic of Adygei, the Republic of Kalmykia, the Republic of Crimea, the Krasnodar territory, the Astrakhan region, the Volgograd region, the Rostov region, and the federal city of Sevastopol.

On March 11, 2014 the Supreme Soviet of Crimea and the Sevastopol City Hall issued a declaration of independence of the Autonomous Republic of Crimes and the city of Sevastopol from Ukraine in the wake of turbulent events in Kiev where a coup d’etat had been commiited and militant radical elements had seized control over the situation.

On March 16, 96.77% residents of the Republic of Crimea and 95.6% residents of Sevastopol voted for reuniting with Russia, from which they were torn away by through Nikita Khrushchev’s arbitrariness in 1954.

A treaty on accepting the new territories as administrative entities of the Russian Federation was signed in Moscow on March 18.