PART 2 INTERNATIONAL LEGAL ASPECT OF THE OCCUPATION OF ARC AND THE CITY OF SEVASTOPOL ence of Ukraine, and that none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine ex- cept in self-defense or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations”. The Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation of May 31, 1997 stipulates: “Article 2. The High Contracting Parties in accordance with the provisions of the UN Charter and obligations under the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, respect each other’s territorial integrity and rea4 rm the inviolability of existing borders between them. Article 3. The High Contracting Parties are to build relationships with each other on the basis of the principles of mutual respect for sovereign equality, territorial integrity, inviolability of borders, peaceful settlement of disputes, non-use of force or threat of force…”. As of February 23, 2014 in Sevastopol and other cities of the ARC, an open military operation of the Russian Federation on seizure of state government bodies of Sev- astopol and the ARC and accession of the Crimea to the Russian Federation took place. Namely, in order to make the actions of the self-proclaimed authorities of Crimea and Sevastopol appear legitimate, in February and March 2014, under the 3 protection of the Russian military forces a number of rallies were held, and a num- ber of state government bodies and Ukrainian military units were seized. On March 18, 2014 an Agreement on accession of the Republic of Crimea to the Rus- sian Federation and establishment of new constituent entities in the Russian Feder- ation was made between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Crimea (rati- R ed on March 21, 2014, FL No. 36). This agreement was signed by citizens of Ukraine S. Aksyonov, V. Konstantinov on behalf of the Republic of Crimea and A. Chaly on behalf of Sevastopol. However, none of the above persons was legally appointed or had any statutory powers according to the eT ective legislation of Ukraine to repre- sent the interests of these administrative-territorial units. This being said, neither the ARC nor the city of Sevastopol are authorized by the Ukrainian Constitution to hold any international negotiations. According to Part 3 of Article 106 of the Ukrain- ian Constitution, it is the President of Ukraine who represents the state in interna- tional relations, manages the state’s foreign policy, holds negotiations and enters into international treaties. At a later stage, the occupational authorities of the Crimea adopted several laws and other regulations that led to severe deterioration of the situation in Crimea and Sevastopol and to violation of human rights and freedoms. These include: • the Decree of the VR of the ARC ‘On Approval of Regulation on the Vigilante 4 Group of the Crimea’ dated March 11, 2014 and the Law of the Republic of 3 http://www.bbc.com/russian/russia/2014/04/140417_putin_phone_line 4 http://crimea.gov.ru/act/11734 18