Timeline of the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation March 3 after the announcement of partial military mobilization in Ukraine and is believed to have been abducted. He was found dead with signs of torture; his hands were handcuffed and his head was covered in duct tape. The Treaty on Accession of the Republic of Crimea to Russia is signed, formally joining the self-declared independent Republic of Crimea to the Russian Federation as two federal subjects - the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol. One Ukrainian soldier and one pro-Russian soldier were killed in the Simferopol Incident. Crimean Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Temirgaliyev said in an
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