“After the referendum, which showed the consent of the people to join Russia, I will also recognize Crimea as part of Russia,” stated Le Pen, noting that Crimea was only considered to be a part of Ukraine due to a Soviet administrative issue, but in reality the peninsula “was never Ukrainian,” she concluded in an interview with Russia’s Izvestia.
According to Le Pen, the fact that the will of the Crimean people has not yet been recognized by the wider international community and the UN is a “cause for regret.”
Le Pen also spoke out against the anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the EU and vowed to fight for their lifting.
Crimea seceded from Ukraine and became a part of the Russian Federation on the basis of a referendum held there shortly after the violent and Western-backed 2014 coup in Kiev. Unwilling to live under an illegitimate and openly anti-Russian regime, over 95% of the nearly 2.5 million Crimean inhabitants voted in favor of secession from Ukraine and reunification with Russia.
Crimea was first acquired by the Russian Empire under the rule of Catherine the Great in 1783. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Crimea became an autonomous republic within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in the USSR. In 1954, Crimean was transferred to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic as a gesture of goodwill by Nikita Khrushchev.
After the unexpected collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Crimea became an autonomous republic within the newly independent Ukraine. Then came the events of 2014.
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