World must respond to Putin’s Crimea admission — Lithuania

Vladimir Putin's public admission about the deliberate seizure of Crimea cannot be ignored, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Linas Linkevičius said before a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday, March 16. "We absolutely must continue to apply pressure. Especially, I would add, after the publication of public admissions that Crimea was seized by order of the Russian leader. Such a declaration cannot be overlooked," Linkevičius said, referring to the showing of the film "Crimea. The return home" on Russian television. He also noted that the pro-Russian militants are not honoring the Minsk agreements, are continuing their shelling , and are preventing any verification of the withdrawal of heavy weapons. "There is a lot of evidence that they are simply regrouping and changing positions. This is not very good news," he said. On March 15, the Russia 1 TV channel showed the film on how Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to "conduct a special operation to return Crimea to Russia" in February 2014.The Russian leader thus openly confessed to a crime against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of an independent state and the beginning of military aggression against Ukraine.