On Friday, President Vladimir Putin has reportedly completed the process of Crimea's annexation on Friday. The Russian president, said The Associated Press, signed the peninsula into his jurisdiction at about the same time as the signing of Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and leaders of the European Union of an association agreement. The news wire said that Yatsenyuk fulfilled the key requirement of a deal former President Yanukovych had backed out in November when he received a $15 billion bailout package from Russia.
The Russian president made known of the symbolic importance of incorporating Crimea into Russia. AP said that Putin hailed the annexation as a remarkable event prior to signing the parliament bills that would make it into law on Friday in the Kremlin. Putin also was said to have commissioned fireworks displays in both Moscow and Crimea to signal the incorporation, the news wire report added.
According to AP, Russia has rushed into proceedings to make the Ukrainian peninsula its own after a referendum in Sunday following a successful public voting about the Black See region's secession. Ukraine and Western powers have since rejected the vote, which AP said was held two weeks after Russia first sent troops to overtake Crimea.
Despite the strong message the annexation would be sending to Ukrainian and the powerful West, Putin has tried to downplay the tensions that would threaten a Cold War when the US imposed sanctions on the former during a televised remarks that also happened on Friday's presidential Security Council session.
On the other hand, Yatsenyuk issued strong words against the Russian president, and said that the sanctions imposed by US and by the EU were of a necessity to retain the original results of the Second Cold War.
"Russia decided to actually impose a new post-Cold War order and revise the results of the Second World War. The best way to contain Russia is to impose real economic leverage over them," Yatsenyuk commented.
