Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, taking it away from Ukraine, which the West deemed illegitimate following the ouster of Ukraine’s pro-Russian president.
Putin hailed the annexation while visiting the coastal city of Sevastopol, a haven for the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
“Our country has regained its historical unity. This lively and indestructible connection is felt especially strongly, of course, here, in Sevastopol, in Crimea, ”he said.
Crimea “is now forever with Russia, because it is the sovereign, free and uncompromising will of the people, of our entire people,” Putin stressed.
National Unity Day celebrates the expulsion in 1612 of the Polish-Lithuanian troops who occupied Moscow. The holiday was established in 2005, replacing the celebration of this date of the Bolshevik revolution in Soviet times.
The day was also the occasion for nationalist marches against immigration, but Moscow authorities banned such events in the Russian capital this year.
According to OVD-Info, a group that monitors political demonstrations and arrests there, about 20 people were arrested while trying to gather at a Moscow metro station to participate in a nationalist protest.
