Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has issued a decree designating February 26 a memorial day to mark the annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region by Russia in 2014.
Russia seized the Black Sea peninsula in March 2014 after sending in troops and staging a referendum deemed illegitimate by at least 100 countries. In April that year, Russia threw its support behind armed separatists in eastern Ukraine, where more than 13,000 people have been killed in the ongoing conflict.
February 26 was designated the Day of Resistance to the Occupation of Crimea and Sevastopol, because on that day in 2014 Ukrainians held the largest protest in Crimea’s capital, Symferopol, against Russia’s intervention in the peninsula following the toppling of Moscow-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych, President Zelenskyy’s office said in a statement.