Rome July 20 (IANS/AKI) Italy s far-right Interior Minister and Deputy Premier Matteo Renzi on Friday said that Russia had a popular mandate to annex the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and denied the referendum that preceded it was fake.
"There was a referendum and 90 percent of the people voted for the return of Crimea to the Russian Federation " Salvini told the Washington Post in an interview.
"Compare it to the fake revolution in Ukraine which was a pseudo-revolution funded by foreign powers — similar to the Arab Spring revolutions.
"There are some historically Russian zones with Russian culture and traditions which legitimately belong to the Russian Federation " he argued.
Russian officials claim the March 16 referendum took place in accordance with international law. But the United Nations General Assembly in March 2014 adopted a resolution backing Ukraine s territorial integrity and declaring that the referendum had "no validity".
Salvini also said he backed lifting European Union sanctions against Russia.
"They didn t prove to be useful and according to the data they hurt Italian exports " he said.
The EU slapped sanctions on Russia over its 2014 intervention in Ukraine prompting Russia to respond with agricultural counter-sanctions.

--IANS/AKI
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