Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine expresses the strongest protest against today’s unauthorised visit by President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, temporally occupied by Russia.

Ukraine considers this step to be a blatant disrespect by the Russian side for the legislation of Ukraine, international law; gross violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty, the United Nations Charter, the United Nations General Assembly Resolution "On Territorial Integrity of Ukraine ", as well as the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation of 1997.

This provocation makes yet another clear evidence that Russia has been consciously escalating tensions in Ukrainian-Russian relations and unwilling to bring bilateral disputes to diplomatic solution.

We demand the Russian side to return to the civilized way of international relations, listen to the decisive voice of international community, as well as repeal all the illegal acts on occupation and annexation of the part of Ukraine’s territory.