The authorities in Crimea on Saturday unveiled a bronze statue of a heavily armed Russian soldier to celebrate the peninsula's 2014 annexation from Ukraine. The slightly larger-than-life sculpture in Crimea's main city of Simferopol shows a soldier carrying a Kalashnikov and wearing rounds of ammunition on his chest. A small girl hands him flowers and a cat rubs against his legs. The Russian troops in unmarked uniforms who took control of the peninsula in March 2014 ahead of a referendum were nicknamed the "polite people" by supporters because of their tight-lipped demeanour.
Kiev and Western countries have refused to recognise the legitimacy of the hastily held referendum backing Russian rule and punished Moscow with sanctions. "We are opening a monument to our glorious Russian warriors - to the modern Russian soldier," Russian President Vladimir Putin's envoy to Crimea Oleg Belaventsev said at the ceremony, quoted by RIA Novosti news agency.