Crimea: Putin Orders Fireworks in Moscow to Celebrate Annexation Treaty

Russian president Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to hold fireworks in Moscow and Crimea's Simferopol and Sevastopol to celebrate the formal signing of the treaty that makes the Black Sea peninsula part of the Russian Federation.

According to his spokesman Dmitry Peskov, fireworks will be launched in ten sites in the capital, including Victory Park, the Russian Exhibition Centre and the Nagatinsky backwater area at 10pm local time.

The Russian president signed into law the treaty to annex Ukraine's Crimea region after the country's upper house of parliament unanimously gave the green light.

Putin hailed the absorption of the territory into Russia as a "remarkable event".

The treaty creates two new Russian administrative regions, Crimea and the port city of Sevastopol where Russia's Black Sea fleet is based.

On Thursday, Russia's lower house of parliament, the State Duma, also ratified the treaty with just one lawmaker voting against.

"From now on, and forever, the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol will be in the Russian Federation," pro-Kremlin lawmaker Leonid Slutsky said in an address before the vote.

The vote comes after the European Union and interim Ukrainian government signed the Association Agreement which agrees to closer cooperation, according to EU officials.

Yesterday, Russia responded to US sanctions on some of its officials by publishing its own list of ten US officials and politicians it has banned.

Acting Ukrainian president Turchynov said that Ukraine "will never accept the seizure of its territory. We are ready for talks with Russia in any kind of format, but their troops must leave Ukraine".