The federal districts are groupings of the federal subjects of Russia. Federal districts are not mentioned in the nation's constitution, and do not have competences of their own and do not manage regional affairs. They exist solely to monitor consistency between the federal and regional bodies of law, and ensuring governmental control over the civil service, judiciary, and federal agencies, operating in the regions.
A rubber stamp is a political metaphor, referring to a person or institution with considerable de jure power but little de facto power — one that rarely or never disagrees with more powerful organizations. Historian Edward S. Ellis used the term toy parliament to describe a rubber-stamp legislature.
Viktor Volodymyrovych Medvedchuk is a former Ukrainian lawyer, business oligarch, and politician who has lived in exile in Russia since September 2022 after being handed over to Russia in a prisoner exchange. Medvedchuk is a pro-Kremlin Ukrainian politician and a personal friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People is the single highest executive-representative body of the Crimean Tatars in period between sessions of the Qurultay of the Crimean Tatar People. The Mejlis is a member institution of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience.
The politics of Crimea today is that of the Republic of Crimea on one hand, and that of the federal city of Sevastopol on the other, within the context of the largely unrecognised annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in March 2014.
The Party "Soyuz" is a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine that was mostly based in Crimea until 2014. It was registered in June 1997 under a registration number 867.
Verkhovna Rada of Crimea or the Supreme Council of Crimea, officially the Supreme Council of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea was the acting Ukrainian legislative body for the Autonomous Republic of Crimea before the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014.
Russian Unity was a political party in Crimea, registered in October 2008. A Kyiv Court banned the party "from activity on the territory of Ukraine" on 30 April 2014. Party leader Sergey Aksyonov was instrumental in making possible the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation. The party was based in Crimea, which has a Russian-speaking majority. The party was dissolved on 5 May 2014.
Zlata Leonidivna Ognevich is a Ukrainian singer and former politician. She represented Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 in Malmö with the song "Gravity", placing third. Ognevich previously attempted to represent Ukraine at the contest in 2010 and 2011.
The Russo-Ukrainian War is an ongoing international conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which began in February 2014. Following Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine and supported pro-Russian separatists fighting the Ukrainian military in the Donbas war. The first eight years of conflict also included naval incidents, cyberwarfare, and heightened political tensions. In February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and began occupying more of the country.
The Autonomous Republic of Crimea is an administrative division of Ukraine encompassing most of Crimea that was annexed by Russia in 2014. The Autonomous Republic of Crimea occupies most of the peninsula, while the City of Sevastopol occupies the rest.
In February and March 2014, Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula, part of Ukraine, and then annexed it. This took place in the relative power vacuum immediately following the Revolution of Dignity and was the first act of the wider Russo-Ukrainian War.
The Republic of Crimea is a republic of Russia, comprising most of the Crimean Peninsula, but excluding Sevastopol. Its territory corresponds to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, a subdivision of Ukraine. Russia occupied and annexed the peninsula in 2014, although the annexation remains internationally unrecognized.
Denis Vladimirovich Pushilin is a politician from the Donbas region of Ukraine, who is serving as the Head of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) since 2018. He holds the position in acting capacity ever since the Russian annexation of the DPR in 2022.
The Crimean problem or the Crimean question is a dispute over the status of Crimea between Ukraine and Russia. The dispute began during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but did not escalate into a conflict until the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, when Russian special forces were deployed to occupy Crimea and took over its government buildings. The official results of an internationally unrecognized referendum held during the occupation indicated overwhelming support for Russian annexation. The Crimean parliament and the autonomous city of Sevastopol unilaterally declared independence from Ukraine to ideally form a country named Republic of Crimea. Russia then annexed the region and created two federal subjects, the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol. Ukraine and the majority of the international community continue to regard Crimea as occupied Ukrainian territory; a United Nations General Assembly resolution declared the referendum invalid and affirmed the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Despite international opinion however, the currency, tax, time zone and legal system are all operational under de facto Russian control. Ukraine has attempted to resolve the matter by filing litigation in multiple international criminal, environmental, political, and other courts.
Parliamentary elections took place in the Republic of Crimea on 14 September 2014. These were the first elections since Crimea's illegal annexation by the Russian Federation on 18 March. The outcome was an overwhelming victory for President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party.
Parliamentary elections were held in Ukraine on 21 July 2019. Originally scheduled to be held at the end of October, the elections were brought forward after newly inaugurated President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dissolved parliament on 21 May 2019, during his inauguration. The elections resulted in an outright majority, a novelty in Ukraine, for Zelenskyy's Servant of the People party, which won 254 seats.
The government of Transnistria, a breakaway state internationally recognized as part of Moldova, has requested annexation by Russia numerous times. Transnistria is a territory that separated itself from Moldova due to fear of a possible unification of the latter with Romania. This sparked the Transnistria War, in which Russian-backed Transnistria managed to stay separate from Moldova. Despite this, today Transnistria is legally and internationally considered part of Moldova.
The Russian occupation of Crimea is an ongoing military occupation within Ukraine by the Russian Federation, which began on 20 February 2014 when the military-political, administrative, economic and social order of Russia was imposed on the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol. The occupation of Crimea and Sevastopol was the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the Russo-Ukrainian War:
