The State Duma adopted a statement “On the 65th anniversary of the theft of Crimea from Russia”
The transfer of Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR was illegal, so there is no reason for disputes regarding the legality of returning the peninsula to Russia.
The State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs adopted a corresponding statement, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“We should remind Ukraine and the whole world that from 1954 to 2014. Crimea was illegally appropriated first by the Ukrainian SSR and then by independent Ukraine. We did not annex Crimea, it was stolen from us.
65 years ago, on April 26, 1954, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted the law “On the transfer of the Crimean region from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR,” which completed the process of illegal annexation of Crimea and was dedicated as a gift to the 300th anniversary of the entry of Little Russia (Ukraine) into Russia . The initiator was the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee (protocol No. 49 of January 25, 1954, classified “Top Secret”): contrary to the Constitutions of the USSR and union republics, it took responsibility for the illegal transfer of part of the territory from one republic to another. The illegitimacy of the transfer of Crimea was inherent in this decision from the very beginning.
All legal acts regarding the transfer of the Crimean region were adopted by the Presidiums of the Supreme Soviets of the USSR, RSFSR and Ukrainian SSR, which, according to the Constitutions of the USSR and union republics, did not have the authority to consider issues related to changes in the territories and composition of the union republic. We consider it important to recall that according to the Constitution of the RSFSR, the territory of the RSFSR could not be changed without the consent of the RSFSR in the person of its highest body of state power - the Supreme Council of the RSFSR (Articles 16, 19, 22, 23 of the Constitution of the RSFSR). By adopting on April 26, 1954 the law on the transfer of the Crimean region from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR grossly violated the requirement of the USSR Constitution (Article 18) to obtain the consent of the union republic, in this case the Russian Federation, to change its territory.
In this way, in the process of the so-called “transfer of the Crimean region” the sovereignty of the Russian Federation was grossly violated. The fact that the USSR, Ukrainian SSR and RSFSR were members of the UN at that time allows us to evaluate the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine from the point of view of international law. It is quite obvious that territorial changes of the RSFSR during the transfer of the Crimean region took place without any consent or taking into account the opinion of the population. There was no agreement between the RSFSR and the Ukrainian SSR, which is a mandatory condition from the point of view of international law.
During the all-Crimean referendum on January 20, 1991, in which 81,37% of residents with the right to vote took part, 93,26% voted for the restoration of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic as an independent subject of the USSR and a party to the Union Treaty, that is, for secession from the Ukrainian SSR. The results of the referendum were ignored by the authorities of the Ukrainian SSR. The subsequent referendum on the independence of Ukraine on December 1, 1991, in accordance with the results of which the Ukrainian authorities declared the independence of their state, contradicted the norms of the USSR Law of April 03, 1990 No. 1409 “On the procedure for resolving issues related to the withdrawal of a union republic from the USSR,” rights Crimeans were violated and their interests were not taken into account.
Deputies - members of the Committee consider it necessary to emphasize that state territory is not the property of the government, much less the political party in power, but the property of the people of a given state. Summing up the legal assessment of the transfer of Crimea from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR, carried out in 1954, we believe that there is every reason to recognize the process as inconsistent with the provisions of the Constitution of the USSR and the Constitution of the RSFSR and, therefore, legally void.
There is no measure to derive an indicator of the moral damage that was caused by the annexation of Ukraine to the Crimean peninsula. Material losses, damage caused to infrastructure, oil and gas shelves, plunder of natural resources, lag in the technological development of the peninsula - all this can be calculated in specific amounts. By rights, Ukraine should be charged for illegal possession of foreign territory.
The State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, Eurasian Integration and Relations with Compatriots believes that the assessment of the illegal decisions of 1954, as well as the expression of the will of the population of Crimea and Sevastopol in 2014, should form the basis of any international acts and statements regarding the ownership of Crimea by Russia. The Russian Federation and only it, as the legal successor of the Soviet Union, has the right to return to the decisions of 1954. These illegal decisions, which have laid a time bomb under the relations between Russia and Ukraine, must be condemned not only on their merits, but also for the sake of the future,” the document emphasizes.
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