A referendum was held in Crimea on March 16 2014, when the region was under military control, to ask voters whether they wanted to be part of Russia. The official result was a 96.7% vote for Russia.
At the time Crimean public buildings were held by Russian soldiers, and the military were seen across the peninsula.
The Russian authorities had cited the Kosovo precedent – where Nato had intervened against the Serbs to create a protectorate over Kosovo – for the Crimean annexation. Russia had already used this rhetoric for its invasion of its neighbour Georgia in 2008.
