section_path: History/Obama administration (2009–2017)/Russian Annexation of Crimea (2014)
section_name: Russian Annexation of Crimea (2014)
paragraph_text: Russian Annexation of Crimea (2014)
  
  Following the collapse of the Viktor Yanukovych government in Ukraine in February 2014, Russia annexed Crimea on the basis of a controversial referendum held on March 16, 2014. The U.S. had submitted a UN Security Council resolution declaring the referendum illegal; it was vetoed by Russia on March 15 with China abstaining and the other 13 Security Council members voting for the resolution. In 2016, in a court in Moscow, former top Ukrainian officials of the Yanukovich administration testified that the collapse of the government was, in their opinion, a coup d'état organized and sponsored by the U.S. government. Russian newspaper Kommersant alleges George Friedman (chairman of Stratfor) had agreed this was the "most blatant coup in history', which George Friedman says was taken out of context.
  
  U.S. secretary of state John Kerry in early March 2014 answering the press questions about Russia's moves in Crimea said, "This is an act of aggression that is completely trumped up in terms of its pretext. It's really 19th century behavior in the 21st century, and there is no way, to start with, that if Russia persists in this, that the G8 countries are going to assemble in Sochi." On March 24, 2014, the U.S. and its allies in the G8 political forum suspended Russia's membership thereof. The decision was dismissed by Russia as inconsequential.
  
  At the end of March 2014, U.S. president Obama ruled out any Western military intervention in Ukraine and admitted that Russia's annexation of Crimea would be hard to reverse; however, he dismissed Russia as a "regional power" that did not pose a major security threat to the U.S. In January 2016, when asked for his opinion of Obama's statement, Putin said, "I think that speculations about other countries, an attempt to speak disrespectfully about other countries is an attempt to prove one's exceptionalism by contrast. In my view, that is a misguided position."
  
  As unrest spread into eastern Ukraine in the spring of 2014, relations between the U.S. and Russia further worsened. The U.S. government imposed punitive sanctions for Russia's activity in Ukraine. After one bout of sanctions announced by President Obama in July 2014 targeting Russia's major energy, financial and defence companies, Russia said the sanctions would seriously harm the bilateral ties relegating them to the 1980s Cold War era.
  
  From March 2014 to 2016, six rounds of sanctions were imposed by the U.S., as well as by the EU, and some other countries allied to the U.S. The first three rounds targeted individuals close to Putin by freezing their assets and denying leave to enter. Russia responded by banning import of certain food products as well as by banning entry for certain government officials from the countries that imposed sanctions against Russia.
  
  The end of 2014 saw the passage by the U.S. of the Ukraine Freedom Support Act of 2014, aimed at depriving certain Russian state firms of Western financing and technology while also providing $350 million in arms and military equipment to Ukraine, and the imposition by the U.S. president's executive order of yet another round of sanctions.
  
  Due to the situation concerning Ukraine, relations between Russia and the U.S. that denounced Russia's actions were in 2014 said to be at their worst since the end of the Cold War.
  
  As vice president, Joe Biden urged the Ukrainian government to reduce the nation's reliance on imports of Russian natural gas, and to eliminate pro-Russia middlemen such as Dmitry Firtash from the country's natural gas industry.