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
Timeline of the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2010 concerning Russian gas supply through Crimea, basing his country's decision on the fact that Crimea is now a part of Russia. Medvedev then denied the change of Russian stance towards its pacts with Ukraine, only speculating that Russia has 'amended' some of the signed documents in order to remove "Crimea" from the lists. About 30% of Crimea and almost half of Simferopol dwellings and buildings met a power outage as Ukrainian electric company UkrEnergo shut off its supply of electricity to those regions. Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko described the blackout as "ridiculous" and urged for both nations to