Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation Yanukovych. At the end of the meeting Putin remarked that "we must start working on returning Crimea to Russia". On 23 February, pro-Russian demonstrations were held in the Crimean city of Sevastopol. On 27 February masked Russian troops without insignia took over the Supreme Council (parliament) of Crimea, and captured strategic sites across Crimea, which led to the installation of the pro-Russian Aksyonov government in Crimea, the conducting of the Crimean status referendum and the declaration of Crimea's independence on 16 March 2014. Russia formally incorporated Crimea as two federal subjects of the Russian Federation with effect from 18 March
Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation Russia would treat Crimea the same way as it had treated South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Crimea is populated by an ethnic Russian majority and a minority of both ethnic Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, and thus demographically possessed one of Ukraine's largest ethnic Russian populations. Already in 2011, some analysts speculated that the Russian government had irredentist plans: The Euromaidan protest movement began in Kiev in late November 2013 after President Viktor Yanukovych, of the Party of Regions, suspended the signing of the Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement. Yanukovych won the 2010 presidential election with strong support from voters in the Autonomous