President Vladimir Putin said he wants to identify an official who can be hanged if a bridge linking Crimea to Russia isn’t built, as he complained that nobody wants to take charge of the project.
“There should be a specific person who can be hanged if it’s not done,” Putin said during a visit to Crimea to view construction work on Friday, the second anniversary of Russia’s annexation of the peninsula from Ukraine. Officials keep passing responsibility for the work to colleagues in different ministries, he said.
Construction of the 19-kilometer (12 miles) bridge to end the peninsula’s isolation is a “historical mission” for Russia that must be completed by Dec. 18, 2018, Putin said. The span linking Crimea to Russia across the Kerch Strait will boost economic growth, he said.
Putin annexed Crimea in March 2014 after the peninsula approved joining Russia in a referendum branded illegal by the United States and the European Union, which imposed sanctions. The vote took place after masked, armed men seized the parliament and government buildings in the Crimean capital, Simferopol, following the overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in February. Putin at first denied sending troops to Crimea, then later admitted that Russian servicemen had assisted local self-defense units.
It was unclear if Putin was speaking figuratively when he made his threat, though a moratorium on the death penalty in Russia has been in force since 1996.
The Crimean peninsula is connected to Ukraine and has no land link to Russia. It was conquered by Russian Empress Catherine the Great in the 18th century and became part of Ukraine only in 1954 — a gift of then-Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
Ukraine has vowed to reclaim Crimea. French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel “reaffirmed that the EU does not recognize the occupation of Crimea by Russia,” at talks Thursday in Brussels with President Petro Poroshenko, according to the Ukrainian presidential website.
Crimeans’ decision to join Russia should be respected and the peninsula’s status can’t “be the subject of any negotiations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call Friday.
Russia’s “illegal invasion” of Crimea won’t be accepted “under any circumstance and Moscow eventually has to end its occupation of Ukraine’s sovereign territory,” U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on a visit to the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, in December.
(c) 2016, Bloomberg ยท Stepan Kravchenko
