Timeline of the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation referendum illegal and affirming Ukraine's territorial integrity. Eleven nations voted against, with 58 abstentions. Russian state media agency ITAR-TASS reported that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs contacted the Ukrainian Embassy in Moscow to inform it of Russia's unilateral termination of a number of Black Sea Fleet agreements, as well as Russia's willingness to repatriate Ukrainian military equipment left in Crimea. Crimea and Sevastopol switched to Moscow Time at 22:00 (10:00 PM) Eastern European Time. In Novofedorivka Junior Sergeant of the Russian Naval Infantry E.Zaitsev fired two shots at close distance from an AK-74, killing Ukrainian officer Major Stanislav Karachevsky who
Crimea by "the commonality of the economy, the proximity, and close economic and cultural relations between the Crimean region and the Ukrainian SSR". At that time no vote or referendum took place, and Crimean population had no say in the transfer (also typical of other Soviet border changes). After the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, doubts have been expressed - from the Russian side by all means, but even by Western historians (Richard Sakwa, "Frontline Ukraine. Crisis In the Borderlands", 2015) - about the very legitimacy of the 1954 transition of Crimea to Ukraine; in the critics' view the