Crimean vote to secede from Ukraine and join Russia in a referendum that has fanned the worst East-West crisis since the Cold War. The Kremlin’s official website quoted Putin’s decree as recognising “the Republic of Crimea… as a sovereign and independent state.”
It was issued “considering the expression of the will of the people of Crimea at the general Crimean referendum” on Sunday, it said.
The decree added that it entered into force from the moment of its signature and included the time stamp of 10:30 pm (1830 GMT).
President Putin is due on Tuesday to address both houses of parliament about the crisis following the announcement of targeted US and EU sanctions against top Russians and Ukrainians deemed responsible for the breakaway vote, as well as pro-Kremlin forces’ effective seizure of the Black Sea peninsula at the start of the month.
The Crimean referendum has been denounced as illegal by both the new pro-European leaders who toppled a Kremlin-backed regime in Kiev last month as well as most of the international community.
Russia’s actions in Crimea even saw its key ally China break ranks and not join Moscow’s veto of a UN Security Council resolution reaffirming that Sunday’s poll “can have no validity”.
Official results showed 96.77 percent of voters in the mostly Russian-speaking region of Ukraine had opted for Kremlin rule in what would be the most radical redrawing of the map of Europe since Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia.
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