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DPA
ROME
Italian Interior Minister and Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini said on Friday that he had no problem with Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, in a disavowal of official EU and US~policy.
In 2014, Crimea was occupied and annexed via a referendum condemned as illegitimate by the UN. That led to Russia being expelled from the G8 and hit by European Union and United States sanctions.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Salvini was asked if he believed"Russia had a right to annex Crimea."
His response:"There was a referendum."
The interviewer called it a"fake referendum," and Salvini said:"[That's your] point of view ... and 90 per cent of the people voted for the return of Crimea to the Russian Federation."
Salvini, who leads the far-right League, spoke days after a visit to Moscow in which he renewed calls for an end to European Union sanctions on Russia and heaped praise on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
