MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The Russian government is not losing hope that Kiev will come to respect the decision of Crimea’s population to rejoin Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday.
"We hope that Kiev will eventually learn to respect the will of several millions of Crimeans and accept the result of the vote," Peskov said.
16 March 2017, 11:02 GMT
Peskov explained that the decision was made in light of a nationalist uprising in Kiev that the Russian-majority population in Crimea perceived as a threat. The vote was lawful, he said, since it was called by a legitimate Crimean authority.
This Thursday marked three years since a 2014 referendum in Crimea that showed 96.77 percent of the Black Sea region wanted to secede from Ukraine and rejoin Russia. The voting angered authorities in Kiev and Western states, who imposed economic sanctions on Russia and Crimea in particular.
