Russian Constitutional amendments to make Crimea return to Ukraine "impossible"

The amendments are to be voted in a national referendum on July 1.

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An amendment to the Russian Constitution related to the "protection of sovereignty" is required to make it impossible to return the annexed Crimea to Ukraine.

"This is spelled out so that no one could seriously alter legislation by which Crimea could be transferred to Ukraine," said co-chair of the working group on the development of amendments to the Russian Constitution and the Federation Council envoy to the Constitutional Court of Russia Andrey Klishas, the Russian news agency RBC reported.

"This is done so that not a single state authority, including president, or parliament, or government, could seriously negotiate, for example, the Crimea return to Ukraine," he said.

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The senator claims the amendment will not be used to "chase bloggers or monitor social networks to see if someone has called for handing Crimea back."

The amendment is worded as follows: "The Russian Federation protects its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Actions (with the exception of delimitation, demarcation, re-demarcation of the state border of the Russian Federation with the neighboring states) aimed at alienating part of the territory of the Russian Federation, as well as calls for such actions, shall not be allowed."

The amendments are to be voted in a national referendum on July 1.

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