TOKYO, July 24. /TASS/: The world map, published on the official website of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, incorrectly shows Crimea as a part of Ukraine and must be fixed, the Russian Embassy to Japan said on its Facebook page on Saturday.
"As the website of the 2020 Olympics has published a map in which the territorial affiliation of Russia’s Crimea Peninsula is represented incorrectly, we would like to remind you that Crimea reunited with the Russian Federation as a result of a free expression of its residents’ will in the course of a referendum, carried out in full compliance with international standards," the statement says.
"Therefore, Crimea is an unalienable part of the Russian Federation, [and] the issue of its affiliation has been closed once and for all. We assume that the IOC [the International Olympic Committee] and the Tokyo Olympics organizing committee should correct the above-mentioned map, bringing the representation of Crimea in full compliance with legal and factual reality," it says.
The Olympic website’s ‘Schedule & Results’ section features a global map, where fans can cheer up their teams with virtual applause.
Earlier reports said this map depicted Crimea with a border separating it from Ukraine. After that the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry ordered Ukraine’s embassies in Switzerland, where the International Olympic Committee is headquartered, and in Japan to iron out the border issue. Later, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba announced that the IOC had changed the map and offered apology for the mistake.
After the coup d’etat in Ukraine in February 2014, Crimea and Sevastopol held a referendum, in which 96.7% of Crimeans and 95.6% of Sevastopol voters chose to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the reunification deal on March 18, 2014, which the Federation Council (upper house of the Russian parliament) ratified on March 21, 2014. Despite the convincing results of the referendum, Kiev refused to recognize Crimea as part of Russia.
