Crimea
Thursday 20 July 2017
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Kiselyov’s legal defense team
“Dmitry Kiselyov has never expressed support for the directing of Russian forces to Ukraine... The EU Council did not provide information necessary to ensure [his] legal right to defense, since the accusations leveled were formulated in an unduly vague way.”
Read more...Lawyers for pro-Kremlin media figure Dmitry Kiselyov claim their client never expressed support for sending Russian troops into Ukraine, and that the European Council has denied him the right to legal defense. In fact, Kiselyov is notorious for provocative comments about Ukraine and the court followed regular procedures in adjudicating his case. -
Maria Zakharova
Spokesperson, Russian Foreign Ministry
“The International Court of Justice has taken a principled stand and did not support the numerous and well-known statements of the Ukrainian side about the alleged so-called "aggression" [and] "occupation" of Crimea, [viewing them] as being unrelated to the essence of the proceedings. In the process, the court did not support any of the temporary measures requested by Ukraine, nor the main point of this part of the Ukrainian suit -- that Russia is “pursuing a policy of erasing the cultural identity of Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar communities."
Read more...The Russian Foreign Ministry says the International Court of Justice found Ukraine’s suit against Russia “implausible.” Court documents contradict this claim, and experts say the ministry’s characterization of the ruling demonstrates that Russia is “still litigating the same argument that it just lost.” -
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Russia
“The sanctions imposed on Russia were a response to our country conducting an independent foreign policy, as well as a kind of punishment for the people of Crimea fulfilling their legitimate right to self-determination and right to freedom of expression enshrined in the foundational international documents on human rights.”
Read more...Russia’s Foreign Ministry says the sanctions imposed by more than 30 countries after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine were a response to Moscow’s “independent foreign policy” and "punishment" for Crimeans voting to join Russia in a 2014 referendum. Experts strongly disagree. -
Patriarch Kirill
Head of the Russian Orthodox Church
“Our church is being oppressed, they are trying to deprive it of civil rights, trying to adopt laws that exclude the normal registration of the Orthodox parishes in Ukraine; the forced takeover of the churches is taking place.”
Read more...The head of Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, accused Ukraine of oppressing Russian Orthodox parishes and its adherents of civil rights. A fact-check reveals that Russian Orthodox believers in Ukraine are breaking with the Moscow-led hierarchy in response to Kirill’s support of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. -
Sergei Lavrov
Foreign Minister, Russia
“The U.S. and European Union bluntly told the Ukrainians: either you are with us, or you are with Russia against us.”
Read more...Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov says the United States sought to “take over this geopolitical space around Russia,” and that the U.S. and EU gave the Ukrainians the ultimatum “either you are with us, or you are with Russia against us.” Experts say it was actually Russia which delivered such an ultimatum to Ukraine. -
Natalya Poklonskaya
Member of Parliament, Russia
"I am confident that today, 100 percent of Crimeans would vote to return to Russia.”
Read more...On the third anniversary of Russia’s annexation of the Crimea, Natalya Poklonskaya, the former Crimean prosecutor general who helped Moscow’s efforts to take over the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula, claimed “100 percent of Crimeans” would vote to be part of Russia if the 2014 referendum were held today. Polling data and experts suggest otherwise. -
Yaroslav Kuzminov
Rector of Higher School of Economics
“Despite the fact that Coursera is an American company, they’ve persuaded the U.S. government to lift the prohibition for teaching in Crimea.”
Likely TrueU.S. provides for some exemptions for sanctions imposed on Russia after annexing Crimea.Read more...While U.S. Treasury Department officials declined comment, American virtual learning company Coursera confirmed it does have U.S. permission for online lessons on their platform to be accessible in Crimea. -
Aleksey Meshkov
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister
“Today, I raised the question about the visa genocide of Crimean residents, and I raised it in a very harsh way because it is not right to make 2.5 million people hostages of their (European) political objectives and demand that they change the citizenship that they had once accepted. This is nonsense.”
Read more...The European Union says Crimeans still holding Ukrainian passports are visa eligible. But because it does not recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the EU will not give visas to Crimeans who received Russian passports after annexation. -
Vladimir Putin
Russian President
“We know how many active and engaged people there are in Crimea and Sevastopol, people who take an active stand and are genuinely involved in the fate of their region and the fate of Russia as a whole. The best evidence of this was the events of Spring 2014, when people took their future into their own hands and decided themselves how and where they want to live.”
Read more...The "active stand" by the "engaged people" of Crimea through referendum is how Russia annexed the peninsula. But that stand came after Russian military intervention and a referendum that drew worldwide condemnation for being illegitimate. -
Valentina Matviyenko
speaker Russia’s upper house of parliament
"It was with the return [of Crimea] to the motherland that the Crimean-Tatar language, for the first time, was granted [official] state status on par with -- I reiterate -- on par with Russian."
Read more...Matviyenko is correct that the Crimean-Tatar language was accorded the status of a “state” language for the first time in Crimea after Moscow’s 2014 annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula. But many Crimean Tatars -- a majority of whom opposed Russia’s takeover of the peninsula -- say this recognition remains largely symbolic, and is outweighed by what many consider systematic repression against the minority ethnic group. -
Iosif Prigozhin
husband and producer of Russian pop star Valeria
“It was a lie when they said that we signed a letter about the annexation of Crimea! There never was such a letter. There has never been anything with Valeria’s or Iosif Prigozhin’s signatures concerning the annexation of Crimea…. We were asked about the referendum in Crimea."
Read more...Valeria and Iosif Prigozhin were among more than 500 of the country’s top cultural figures to sign a controversial open letter published March 11, 2014 by Russia’s Culture Ministry expressing “firm” support for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “position on Ukraine and Crimea.” Prigozhin denies it meant the two supported Russia's annexation of Crimea. Prigozhin is right that there is no mention of “annexation” in the letter, but the two have been vocal in their support of bringing Crimea into Moscow’s domain.