The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has responded to the Russian legislative initiative to recognise the 1954 transfer of Crimea to Ukraine as illegal.
"The submission to the Russian State Duma of a bill to recognise as 'illegal' the decision of the Soviet authorities in 1954 to transfer Crimea to Ukraine is a despicable attempt by the Russian dictatorship to legitimise its own gross violations of international law," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The ministry also stressed that the aggressor grossly violates its own obligations, as "at one time it legally, documentarily and unequivocally recognised the borders of modern Ukraine at both bilateral and multilateral levels".
"The Russian authorities, caught lying hundreds of times and compromised, can continue their propaganda as much as they want, including under the guise of lawmaking, but this will not change the reality recognised by the international community: Crimea is Ukraine," the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry stressed.
It also called such Russian "initiatives" panic.
"This draft law of the State Duma only confirms once again that this fact, as well as the inevitability of de-occupation, is clearly understood in Moscow, which is why such panic initiatives arise," the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine concluded.