Such a step, taken contrary to Ukraine’s official warnings, has become yet another fact of Russia’s negligence to respect Ukraine’s national sovereignty, UN Statute, UN GA resolution on “Territorial integrity of Ukraine”, OSCE Parliamentary Assembly resolutions, bilateral and multilateral obligations.

Ukraine considers this visit and other uncoordinated “visits” of Russian officials to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol as a failed effort to legitimize illegal “government authorities” on the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine and in fact to approve actions that have already led to economic and social problems, human rights violations, persecution of journalists, Ukrainian-speaking people and indigenous Crimean-Tatar population of the autonomy, violations of property rights of legal and private entities of Ukraine.