Crimea votes overwhelmingly for Russian accession

More than 96 percent of Crimea voters chose accession to Russia, according to referendum results released March 17, the Russian daily Kommersant wrote March 17.

“The results of the referendum became public today [with] 96.77 percent of the Crimean residents of those who came to the referendum voting for the accession to the Russian Federation,” the head of the Supreme Council for the referendum, Mikhail Malyshev, said.

The head of the municipal electoral commission of Sevastopol Valery Medvedev reported that the referendum was held without any violations.

“There were no technical violations during the referendum, nor complaints from the precincts were reported,” he told the press.

Earlier the Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that the Crimean referendum was held within the norms of the international law. Crimean Prime Minister Sergey Aksenov recognized the referendum as valid, Kommersant wrote.

Russian celebrities came to support the Crimean residents and gave a concert on the central square of Sevastopol. Leaders of the Russian political parties also paid a visit to the Crimea and spoke to public, according to the Russian media.

In Kiev, the interim government rejected the validity of the referendum of the autonomous region, where 60 percent of the residents are ethnic Russian population.

“It was impossible to control the voting process due to so-called ‘supplementary voting lists,’ which included votes of Russian passport holders and people who already voted at different precincts,” the Chairman of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, Aleksandr Chernenko, reported on a live transmission after his visit to the Crimea.

Ukrainian Parliament then approved the decree of the acting President of Ukraine, Aleksandr Turchinov, on a partial mobilization of troops.

Ukrainian oligarchs from Dnepropetrovsk region have already begun to supply the Ukrainian military units with fuel and necessary daily goods, the Ukrainian daily media Fakty.ua reported.