Fireworks have been let off over Moscow on President Vladimir Putin’s orders as Russia celebrated the formal annexation of Crimea, in a front to the West.
Mr Putin laughed off the US sanctions that targeted his inner circle, promising the Russian government would “have the back” of those on the list, and even opening a personal account at a sanctioned bank as an act of solidarity.
“Far as I’m aware, it’s an average bank,” Mr Putin said on Friday of Bank Rossiya, the only institution on the list of sanctions targets released by the US Treasury Department on Thursday. “I don’t have a personal account there, but I’ll open on on Monday.”
And in what appeared to be a move to de-escalate tensions, he even said he had no intention of imposing answering reactions. “We should refrain from retaliatory steps,” he said. » | Roland Oliphant in Simferopol and Yekaterina Kravtsova in Moscow | Friday, March 21, 2014
