Crimea’s Fate

Kiev sent to the Russian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday its protest over the ongoing visit of Russia's President Vladimir Putin to Crimea, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

US presidential candidate Donald Trump’s call for improved relations with Moscow and his apparent backing of Crimea’s decision to secede from Ukraine are unlikely to inspire confidence in Russia.

Crimean issue as being a part of Russia will never be negotiated, the speaker of the upper house of the Russian parliament said Saturday.

Moscow is surprised at the reaction French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius expressed earlier this week about the Crimean referendum, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Thursday.

Crimean reunification with Russia reflects the self-determination of the Black Sea peninsula’s citizens, a Serbian lawmaker on a visit to Crimea said in a letter seen by Sputnik.

Leader of the Serbian Dveri movement Bosko Obradovic said Tuesday that he was proud of his visit to Crimea, in spite of the danger of falling under the pressure of Western countries.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel for the first time publically accepted the fact that Crimea doesn’t belong to Ukraine and that the peninsula will stay as part of Russia, Alexei Pushkov, head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian Duma, said on his Twitter account, according to Gazeta.ru.

President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that the subject of Crimea's reunification with Russia was closed as the local residents had clearly expressed their will on the future of the peninsula.

Residents of Crimea wanted to hold a referendum on self-determination 20 years ago, TV Channel Zvezda said, citing words of Yuri Meshkov, a former Ukrainian politician and the only President of Crimea.

Crimea’s reunification with Russia is actually a good thing and will benefit Ukraine, Ostap Drozdov, the media director of Ukrainian TV channel ZIK, told Canadian-based Ukrainian TV Vancouver.

The situation on the Crimean Peninsula, which reunified with Russia after an independence referendum last year, requires objective coverage, which cannot be guaranteed by the Western media, The Japan Times columnist Gregory Clark said.

Ankara considers Crimea's reunification with Russia, as deplorable as repression against the Crimean Tatars in the last century and will not recognize it, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, as quoted in a foreign ministry statement emailed to Sputnik Turkey on Monday.

People living in Crimea are happier in Russia than Ukraine, France’s Member of the European Parliament Edouard Ferrand told Sputnik.

Members of Hungary’s Jobbik party intend to follow up on an official invitation and visit Crimea this autumn.

Kiev authorities are hypocritical to speak of the minority rights of Tatars in Crimea, while simultaneously ignoring the minority rights of Hungarians in Ukraine's southwestern region of Zakarpattia, former French Minister of Transport and current member of the French National Assembly Thierry Mariani told Sputnik Tuesday.

The European Union initiated the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, head of the French National Front’s delegation to the European Parliament Edouard Ferrand told Sputnik on Tuesday.

Germany is not going to change its interpretation of Crimea’s reunification with Russia, which it views as the forcible acquisition of Ukrainian territory, government spokesman Steffen Seibert said Wednesday.

Russia has done more for Crimean Tatars since the reunification than Ukraine has in over two decades while the peninsula was under its rule, Resit Kemal As, advisor of the head of Crimea Sergei Aksenov, told Sputnik.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Thursday he "appreciates" the fact that the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry is closely monitoring his movements on the Russian territory and shows interest in the development of the Russian region of Crimea.

A well-monitored vote should be held in Crimea to let the people of Crimea decide if they want to be Russians or Ukrainians, US Congressman Dana Rohrabacher said at the annual US-Russia Forum in Washington DC.