On March 16, a referendum was held on the territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the separate municipality of Sevastopol, in which 96.8% of voters opted to join the Russian Federation as its subjects, with a turnout of 83.1%.

 On March 18, Moscow proclaimed the annexation of Crimea (both the Republic and Sevastopol) to the Russian Federation as two of its entities. This decision has not been recognized by Kyiv and the International community.

 Crimea is dependent on supplies from Ukraine of water, for agricultural and industrial products (75-80%), and electricity (80-85%). Supplies of natural gas are probably only important for certain industrial plants; Crimea extracts a significant amount of this material itself, and is able to meet the vast majority of the needs from its own territory (currently over 80%).