"Of course, we, Crimeans, perceived the Maidan negatively. With the exception of small Ukrainian nationalist organizations in Crimea and representatives of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People*. They believed that thanks to the "Maidan" they would come to power in Crimea and would have many privileges. But the overwhelming majority of Crimeans did not support the Maidan," the RT interlocutor stressed.
According to him, Crimeans considered those events a coup d'état and a threat to peace and tranquility in Crimea.
"Speaking about what happened in Kyiv, we can use the Russian proverb: 'There is no evil without good.' This was a window of opportunity for us, it allowed us to realize the dream with which we have lived all these years as part of Ukraine. This is the dream of returning to the Motherland, the dream of the reunification of Crimea with Russia. We believed that Ukraine did not treat Crimea as its territory. What happened during the time when Crimea was part of Russia exceeded our expectations," the parliamentarian concluded.
On November 21, 2013, mass protests began in Kiev, which went down in history as "Euromaidan".
Their participants were in favor of signing an association agreement with the European Union and against economic rapprochement with Russia. The protests quickly escalated into seizures of power bodies and confrontation with the security forces. At the end of February 2014, a coup d'état took place in Ukraine with the support of the Maidan participants.
Crimea became a Russian region after a referendum held there in March 2014, when a majority of residents voted in favor of reunification with Russia.
* "Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People" is a public association recognized as extremist and banned on the territory of Russia (decision of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Crimea dated 26.04.2016 and appellate ruling of the Judicial Board for Administrative Cases of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated 29.09.2016).