07.03 Ukraine Crisis Deepens as Sevastopol Votes to Join Russia

MOSCOW, March 7 (RIA Novosti) – Ukraine’s Crimean city of Sevastopol has voted to become part of Russia, mirroring an earlier vote by the region’s parliament and consolidating support for the majority ethnic Russian region to formally secede from Ukraine in an upcoming popular vote.

The Sevastopol city council voted “to join the Russian Federation as a subject,” the council said in a statement Thursday evening.

The city, which has a separate administrative status from the rest of Crimea, will still take part in a public referendum to formalize the decision, scheduled by the Crimean parliament for March 16.

The referendum will offer voters two choices: to either approve the secession or for the primarily Russian-speaking peninsula to remain an autonomous republic within Ukraine.

Crimea’s surprise vote on secession, while lacking any immediate practical effect, deepened the ongoing political crisis in the region after thousands of troops – apparently under Russian command, but lacking official insignia – took control of Ukrainian military bases across Crimea in the past week.

The acting president of Ukraine, Oleksandr Turchynov, dismissed the referendum plan, calling it “a farce” and “a crime against the state,” and claiming in a televised address Thursday evening that the Ukrainian parliament would move to dissolve the Crimean one.

US President Barack Obama denounced Crimea's move as illegal under the Ukrainian constitution and international law, and ordered financial and visa sanctions for those responsible for the vote, which he said threatened the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

US allies in the European Union swiftly followed with a matching set of visa sanctions, threatening further measures if the crisis could not be defused.