Putin calls Crimea annexation historic

Russian President Vladimir Putin used his New Year’s address to hail the March annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region as “the most important milestone in the country’s history.”

The Kremlin leader’s appeal to his countrymen’s patriotic sentiments over the Black Sea peninsula made clear that he has no intention of backing down from the land grab that brought Western sanctions and international scorn on Moscow in 2014.

“Love for the motherland is one of the most powerful, uplifting feelings. It manifested to the full extent in the brotherly support of Crimea and Sevastopol residents, when they firmly decided to return home,” Putin said in the address, which aired just before midnight in each of Russia’s 11 time zones. “This event will always be the most important milestone in the country’s history.”

Putin also praised Russia’s staging of the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, calling the event “the best Winter Olympics in history” and telling every Russian citizen to take pride in the successful event.

Russia won the most gold medals and the most overall in the Feb. 7-23 competition, and concerns that anti-Kremlin Caucasus militants might attack the international gathering proved unfounded.

Putin’s view that annexing Crimea corrected a historic injustice is one widely shared among Russians.

The peninsula was part of imperial Russia for more than a century and remained part of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic after the Bolshevik Revolution. Crimea is home to Russia’s Black Sea fleet, and a majority of its 2 million residents are Russian.

Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev reassigned Crimea to the Ukrainian Soviet republic in 1954, when the two neighbors were both part of the Soviet Union, and the region’s defense installations protected the whole 15-entity Communist federation.