Political status of Crimea declared their independence from Ukraine as a single united state under the name of "Republic of Crimea". These two entities (Crimea and Sevastopol) were then annexed by Russia, where the Crimean Autonomous Republic became the "Republic of Crimea" as a Russian republic and Sevastopol became a Russian federal city. However, Ukraine and the majority of the international community do not consider the merge, the independence, the referendum, nor the annexation legitimate and still consider both entities as parts of Ukraine. Despite international opinion however, the currency, tax and legal system are all operational under Russian jurisdiction. Ukraine has applied for
Crimea withdrew its forces from southern Kherson in December 2014 Since Russian control over Crimea was established in 2014, the peninsula has been administered as part of the Russian Federation except for the northern areas of the Arabat Spit and the Syvash which are still controlled by Ukraine. Within days of the signing of the accession treaty, the process of integrating Crimea into the Russian federation began: in March the Russian ruble went into official circulation and clocks were moved forward to Moscow time, in April a new revision of the Russian Constitution was officially released with the Republic of Crimea