PART 1 THE OCCUPATION OF CRIMEA: CHRONICLE OF SEIZURE there was no open military conU ict, yet still a part of the territory of an independent Ukraine was occupied. The following chronicle of events conR rms these details. On February 23, 2014, at a rally on Nakhimov Square in Sevastopol, Crimea, busi- nessman Alexey Chaly was elected the ‘people’s mayor’ in direct violation of the law of Ukraine. On this day, the formation of so-called ‘self-defense’ forces (hereaf- ter, ‘Crimean self-defense’) was announced. During it’s R rst two weeks, the ‘Crimean self-defense’ acted jointly with Russian troops that were operating in military uni- forms but without insignias. It was these Russian troops who are called ‘little green men’. In 2015, Russian president Vladimir Putin, in a series of interviews and R lms about so-called ‘Crimean spring’, R nally admitted that the ‘little green men’ were in fact Russian military soldiers. The occupation of Crimea started in Sevastopol, which, according to a treaty be- tween Russia and Ukraine, served as the base of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, a part of the Russian Navy and Russian Armed Forces. On February 25, two ‘Ural’ military vehicles with Russian license plates entered Yalta, 80 km from Sevastopol. The trucks with armed soldiers without insignia arrived at the Health Resort of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation. The health resort director Vladimir Klemeshev admitted that they were Russian military. On February 26, a demonstration in support of Ukrainian sovereignty and the sta- tus of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea was held in Simferopol, the administra- tive center of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (ARC). The demonstration was organized by the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people and was attended by several thousand Crimeans. The head of Mejlis, Refat Chubarov, addressed the speaker of Crimean parliament Vladimir Konstantinov with a request to adjourn the extraordi- nary session of the parliament of the ARC. Eventually the session was cancelled. At the same time, Russian nationalists organized a rally near the Crimean parliament demanding that Crimea join Russia. Their provocations led to clashes. On the same day, Russian Defense Minister General Sergey Shoygu said that the Rus- sian Defense Ministry would take measures to ensure the safety of the Black Sea Fleet in Crimea, which further led to an increase of Russian military presence in Crimea. Early in the morning on February 27, armed people without insignia seized the main administrative buildings of Simferopol – the Council of Ministers and the parlia- ment (Verkhovna Rada) of the ARC. The takeover of these buildings was conR rmed by Ukraine’s Minister of Internal AT airs Arsen Avakov. After the takeover, the center of Simferopol and the city’s main streets were blocked by unmarked soldiers in ve- hicles with Russian license plates. 8