🗓 On March 18, 2014, President of Russia Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister of Crimea Sergey Aksyonov, Chairman of the State Council of Crimea Vladimir Konstantinov and Head of Sevastopol Alexey Chaly signed the Agreement formalising Crimea’s reunification with the Russian Federation.

🗳 This historic moment occurred just two days after the all-Crimean referendum had been held. 96.77% of Crimeans and 95.6% of Sevastopol residents supported reunification with Russia. It was the embodiment of the right of peoples for self-determination and a true triumph of democracy.

💬 President Putin: In people’s hearts and minds, Crimea has always been an inseparable part of Russia. This firm conviction is based on truth and justice and was passed from generation to generation, over time, under any circumstances (from the Address by the President of the Russian Federation on March 18, 2014).

The ensuing developments, including attempts by the post-coup Ukrainian authorities to punish the peninsula's population, prove that the decision of Crimeans to reunite with Russia was the only way to go. Having made their choice to be with their historical homeland, with Russia, the residents of Crimea avoided the fate of the many Russians and Russian-speakers, did not fall victim to the Russophobic Kiev regime.

Instead, the peninsula and its people flourished, overcoming decades of neglect and decay under Ukraine, becoming one of the most rapidly developing region worldwide.

💬 Sergey Lavrov: The question of who Crimea and Sevastopol belong to is closed. The peninsula is an integral part of the Russian Federation (from the address of Russia's Foreign Minister on the 10th anniversary of the Crimean Spring, March 16, 2014).

#CrimeaIsRussia #TogetherForever

❗️Voting for Russia's General Elex Concludes at Polling Stations Around India - Where ballots are now being sorted & counted

🎉 Today, our country celebrates the 🔟th Anniversary of the historic reunification of Crimea with Russia.

The past decade has seen Crimea change dramatically, as Russia has done tremendous work to improve the region’s economic, investment, cultural and tourist appeal. Today, Crimea is one of the fastest growing regions not only in Russia, but in the entire continent.

💬 Sergey Lavrov: Large projects which contribute to reviving and renewing Crimea, helping it integrate into the political, legal and socioeconomic space of Russia and improve the quality of life, have been implemented and some are underway. (from the Russian Foreign Minister’s video address on the 10th anniversary of the Crimean Spring, Moscow, March 16, 2024).

Over the past 10 years:

✅ Major transport infrastructure facilities have been developed:

• Crimean Bridge, the longest bridge in Europe, and a symbol of Crimea’s reunification with Russia.

• Simferopol International Airport, one of the most comfortable, well-equipped, and up-to-date airports in Russia.

• The Tavrida highway, connecting cities from Kerch to Sevastopol.

✅ Social facilities upgraded or built anew:

• More than 7 million square metres of housing made available.

• Several multipurpose medical centres opened, including the Semashko Republican Clinical Hospital.

• Artek, the largest international children’s centre in the world, was renovated.

• Three major sports facilities built, including the Water Sports Palace in Simferopol.

• Ten schools have been built and 160 kindergartens have opened.

🤝 Much has been done to harmonise ethnic and religious relations in the peninsula. An atmosphere of inter-ethnic and inter-religious harmony is now maintained in Crimea. Linguistic equality and diversity are respected.

Today, Crimea has everything to ensure its further effective long-term development, and Crimeans can look to the future with confidence and optimism.

#CrimeaIsRussia #TogetherForever

#See4Yourself

🎬 Crimea's Renaissance - an RT Doc Film.

Synopsis: In 2014, almost 97% of eligible citizens voted for Crimea to join the Russian Federation.

"We could really breathe after the referendum. It was like... a second birth," says Andrey Malgin, a Crimean resident.

In the 10 following its reunification with Russia, Crimea has undergone an incredible transformation. The region now boasts new infrastructure, a modern energy system, scientific centres, renovated museums, advancements in winemaking, and breakthroughs in medicine. Its legendary 'Artek' youth camp has been given a second life. All shaping the new reality for its residents. But... this is not all that has been achieved within the Russian Crimea, there is much more!

Learn more on the achievements of the region, in which the whole country can take pride. Watch this RT documentary to witness firsthand the pristine beauty of the peninsula and see the breathtaking changes.

👉 Watch the full film by RT Documentary

#Election2024

⚡️ Roskomnadzor (Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media):

During the presidential election, Roskomnadzor’s Public Communications Network Monitoring and Management Centre (PCNMMC) had to adopt countermeasures against 497 DDoS attacks at Russia’s ICT infrastructure.

During the election, Roskomnadzor specialists protected 920 important Russian resources. The main vector of DDoS attacks was aimed at the resources of the Central Election Commission and at Moscow’s remote online voting. Attacks were conducted at all election infrastructure resources at the same time. The most powerful attack was 87 Gb/S, the longest lasted for 40 hours 12 minutes.

❗️ Germany, the UK, the US, Finland and Lithuania were the main sources of the attacks.

Active countermeasures by the PCNMMC neutralised the impact of the attacks on Russian infrastructure. The attacks did not cause any mishaps or loss of access to Russian resources. All attacks were rebuffed.

Five phishing websites imitating electoral resources were also blocked during these days.

🎙 President Vladimir Putin attended a concert on Red Square to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Crimea and Sevastopol’s reunification with the Russian Federation (March 18, 2024)

💬 Vladimir Putin: From the bottom of my heart, I welcome and congratulate you all on the anniversary of the reunification of Crimea and Sevastopol with Russia!

Exactly ten years ago, taking the same stage on Red Square, I recalled that Crimea is often called the unsinkable aircraft carrier. This is what prompted me to say that Crimea had returned to its home harbour.

❗️ However, Crimea is not only a strategically vital territory, not only part of our history, our traditions and Russia’s pride. Crimea is primarily its people. The people of Sevastopol and Crimea, they are our pride. They remained faithful to the homeland over the decades, they never separated themselves from Russia, and this is precisely what made it possible for Crimea to come back to our common family.

The same is true of Donbass and Novorossiya. The people living there expressed their will to return to their family during the days of the “Russian Spring.” Their path home involved much greater difficulty and tragedy. Nevertheless, we did it, and it is also a great event in the history of our state.

Now we are making progress and moving forward together, side by side. Just this morning, I received a report that the railway from Rostov to Donetsk, Mariupol and Berdyansk has been restored. We will continue this work and soon trains will go straight to Sevastopol. This would be yet another alternative route – instead of the Crimean Bridge.

We will carry on like this together, hand in hand. This is what makes us truly stronger – not in words but in deeds. And credit for all this goes to you, citizens of Russia.

Read in full

🇷🇺 Comment by Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov to TASS news agency

❓The IAEA issued a statement on the drone attack against the Zaporozhskaya NPP, but did not name the guilty party, despite calls from Russia. What is the reason for this policy of the Organization? Can we expect the Agency to change its approach on this issue?

💬 The IAEA refers to the fact that the Agency's Statute does not provide for the Secretariat to perform attributive functions, that is, the functions of determining the guilty party. Here, however, there is one fundamental exception. On May 30, 2023, after lengthy consultations with Moscow and Kiev, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi announced at the UN Security Council «five specific principles» for ensuring security at the Zaporozhskaya NPP. The most important of them is the inadmissibility of attacks against the NPP. Rafael Grossi pledged, if an attack on the Zaporozhskaya NPP does occur, to immediately make this fact public. Thank God, since November 20, 2022, there have been no Ukrainian strikes directly on the territory of the object

❓Does the Russian side agree with the conclusions of experts that the strike did not affect the nuclear safety of the Zaporozhskaya NPP, as well as with the conclusions that the exact nature of the strike (a drone or another missile) cannot be established?

💬 The corresponding section of the statement published by the IAEA causes, to say the least, bewilderment and disappointment. The emphasis in this message is placed in some bizarre way. Indeed, the drone attack in the immediate vicinity of a diesel fuel storage facility fortunately did not lead to negative consequences for nuclear safety, but it did create an extremely serious threat. The vapors released by diesel fuel are explosive. Taking into account the huge reserves of diesel in the storage facilities adjacent to the Zaporozhskaya NPP, the consequences could be catastrophic. This fundamental aspect was completely ignored by the Agency Secretariat, as if it were completely indifferent to it. The experts’ statement that they were unable to determine the origin of the crater they saw five meters from the fence of the diesel fuel storage facility also sounded absurd. From the point of view of nuclear safety and the IAEA mandate, it makes no difference whether the crater was the result of a drone explosion or some other explosive device. The very fact of delivering a strike close to a vital facility on the territory of an industrial zone adjacent to the perimeter of the Zaporozhskaya NPP is important. In addition to the risk of fire and explosion, it should be borne in mind that reserve diesel fuel reserves are extremely important to ensure guaranteed power supply to the station in the event of power line failure. The drafters of the document in the Agency Secretariat demonstrated a completely detached attitude towards this, limiting themselves to a dry presentation of the facts

💬 We have brought our criticisms to the attention of the Secretariat

💬 We emphasized that in the future we expect more verified and objective assessments from the Agency employees at the Zaporozhskaya NPP and the IAEA headquarters in Vienna

#CrimeaIsRussia

🗓 Russia & Crimea have gone hand in hand throughout history dating all the way back to the second half of the X century, when the peninsula’s eastern part was included in the Ancient Rus' Principality of Tmutarakan.

☦️ The Rus' reinforced its position in Crimea after the successful campaign by Grand Prince Vladimir against the Byzantine city of Korsun' in 988. It was here, in Tauric Chersonesus that Vladimir the Great was baptised & initiated Christianisation of Rus' — a decision that largely determined the future of our Motherland, its cultural & historical path.

In the XIII century, the Golden Horde seized Crimean lands. After its collapse, the Crimean Khanate, vassal of the Ottoman Empire, emerged in the XV century. During the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774, Russia ended the Ottoman domination on the peninsula.

📜 In 1783, Catherine the Great issued a Manifesto on the accession of the Crimean Peninsula to the Russian Empire. This was done on requests of Crimeans themselves.

⚔️ Subsequently, Russian soldiers bravely & honourably defended the peninsula against Russia's enemies. We remember the heroes who fell during the Defence of Sevastopol in 1854-1855 & the Soviet soldiers during the Great Patriotic War's Battle for Crimea.

In 1954, Crimea was incorporated into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic against the will of its residents & in violation of the law.

🗳 In the 1990s, residents of Crimea repeatedly attempted to receive broader autonomy from Ukraine & enhance their historical ties with Russia.

What did Kiev do? It substantially limited the rights & freedoms of the Crimeans. And following the February 2014 coup d'état & the seizing of power by the nationalists, there emerged a very tangible threat of the same kind of brutal violence to be used against the peninsula's residents.

🇷🇺 On March 18, 2014 the much-awaited reunification took place — based on the free expression of will by Crimeans in the March 16 referendum Crimea acceded to Russia, reuniting once again & now forever!

🇷🇺🇮🇳📞 During the extensive telephone call, Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi congratulated Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the Russian presidential election and offered his sincere wishes of prosperity and well-being to the Russian people.

Both Parties expressed satisfaction with the consistent and dynamic development of mutually beneficial ties in trade, the economy, investment, energy and transport, reflecting the spirit of their special and privileged strategic partnership.

The President and the Prime Minister also exchanged views on various issues on the international agenda, particularly regarding the situation around Ukraine. They affirmed their commitment to coordinating their countries' actions within multilateral formats, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and #BRICS.

🤝 The conversation was warm and friendly. Vladimir Putin wished Narendra Modi successful parliamentary elections in India.

#RussiaIndia