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SIMFEROPOL, March 17, 0:52 /ITAR-TASS/. Upon the processing of 50% ballots cast Sunday in a referendum on Crimea’s future, a total of 95.5% voters who had come to the polling stations said ‘yes’ to the reunification of their region with Russia, Mikhail Malyshev, a person in charge of the referendum commission at the Crimean legislature said. Another 3.5% voters said ‘yes’ to Crimea’s continued stay within Ukraine. Invalidated ballots made up 1% of the total. Malyshev said that the data did not feature the results of voting in Sevastopol. The ballots in Sunday’s referendum contained two questions: 1) Are you...

SIMFEROPOL, March 16. /ITAR-TASS/. A total of 93% of participants in the referendum in Crimea have voted for the accession to Russia, according to an exit poll conducted by the Crimean Institute for Political and Sociological Studies. A total of 7% of participants in the referendum prefer Crimea to preserve its status. The exit poll’s data were made public after polling stations had closed closed. The exit poll was conducted at over 200 polling stations of Crimea, including 50 polling stations in Sevastopol. People were asked the question: do you vote for Crimea’s accession to Russia as a constituent entity...

MOSCOW, March 16. /ITAR-TASS/. Sunday’s referendum in Crimea, in which the voters expressed their will on the future of their region, is a historic moment for Russia, State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin said in an interview with the Moscow-based Channel One television channel. He called for awaiting the final results of the referendum first, yet he underlined the fact Russia had mostly been losing people in previous years. “And here at last we’re getting our compatriots back,” Naryshkin said. “So that’s a historic moment for Russia.” “The figures produced by the referendum speak for themselves, just look at the voters’...

MOSCOW, March 16. /ITAR-TASS/. Leader of the A Just Russia Party Sergei Mironov told Channel One on Sunday the State Duma, lower house of Russia’s parliament, will quickly approve all laws on Crimea’s accession to Russia. “We’ll approve all laws as soon as reasonably possible,” Mironov said. “All will happen strictly and quickly. Our Crimean brothers should not doubt,” he said.

SIMFEROPOL, March 16. /ITAR-TASS/. Crimean premier Sergey Aksyonov told Channel One a delegation of Crimea’s parliament would leave for Moscow on March 17 to work with Russian colleagues on the accession to Russia. “The Crimean parliament will gather for an extraordinary session at 10:00 on March 17 to approve the results of the referendum. In the afternoon the parliament’s delegation will leave for Moscow for further consultations with Russian colleagues over the accession to Russia as a constituent entity,” Aksyonov said.

There will be a vote in Crimea on Sunday on whether to split from the Ukraine and join Russia. It is likely to pass. So there will not be a return to the status quo ante. The best the United States and Western Europe can hope for would be an outcome in which Crimea is not formally detached from Ukraine, but has a very high degree of autonomy. This autonomy would include not just choices about domestic policies but about some aspects of foreign policy as well. Ukraine would be a confederal state where at least one of the component...

http://en.ria.ru/vote/20140306/188148240.html