Russian Unity

The Russian Unity (Ukrainian: Руська Єдність, romanized: Ruska Yednist; Russian: Русское Единство, romanized: Russkoye Yedinstvo) was a political party in Crimea, registered in October 2008. A district court in Kyiv banned the party "from activity on the territory of Ukraine" on 30 April 2014. Party leader Sergey Aksyonov was instrumental in making possible the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation. The party was based in Crimea, which has a Russian-speaking majority. The party was dissolved on 5 May 2014. Although the party took positions on a number of issues, the party's main focus was Russian language rights and promoting Ukrainian relations with Russia before the 2014 Crimean Crisis, in which it became supportive of secession from Ukraine to join Russia; after this occurred, it merged into the Russian political party United Russia.