UN General Assembly declares Crimea referendum invalid

PanARMENIAN.Net - The UN General Assembly on Thursday, March 27 declared as invalid Crimea's recent Moscow-backed referendum to secede from Ukraine. The invalidity was declared by a vote of 100 to 11, with 58 abstentions in the UN assembly, Deutsche Welle reported.

Kyiv's new government, which drafted the resolution, called for a "stronger and more concrete" united, international front against what they called Russia's aggression in the region.

In addition to Russia, "no" votes came from Armenia, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, North Korea, Nicaragua, Sudan, Syria and Zimbabwe.

Thursday's resolution calls on all states to refrain from any attempts to modify Ukraine's borders through the threat or use of force, or other unlawful means, while calling on dialogue to help diffuse the crisis.

The Western-backed measure is not legally binding. Russia vetoed a similar text last month in the more powerful UN Security Council.

Russia maintains that it had no right to refuse support to the majority-Russian-speaking Crimea and their right to self-determination.

"For several centuries," Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin told the assembly, Crimea was "an integral part of our country."

"Only an arbitrary decision by the USSR to transfer it to Ukraine upset this natural state of affairs," he added.

Churkin called the vote a "moral victory" for Russian diplomacy, as "almost half" of the UN's 193 members did not support the resolution.

"An increasing number of countries are beginning to understand the complexity of the situation and the motives behind the actions of Crimea and the Russian Federation," he said.

Also on Thursday, the U.S. Congress passed legislation approving a $1 billion (730 million euro) loan guarantee for Ukraine's government. The measure also imposes sanctions on Russians and Ukrainians over Moscow's annexation of Crimea.