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Medvedev deletes tweet with claim “Crimea will definitively become ours”

Source: Meduza

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's tweet with the words "Crimean bridge linking the peninsula to Russia, and Crimea will definitively become ours" has been deleted.

It was published at 7:39 PM Moscow time on September 15, 2016 and appeared alongside photos of Medvedev and Vladimir Putin's visit visit to Crimea.

By 10:05 PM, the message had been deleted. In its place, there was a new one with the same pictures and the text "Crimean bridge linking the peninsula with the rest of the country."

Some users also reported on the evening of September 15, that they had been blocked from accessing Dmitry Medvedev's account. Among them was Georgy Alburov, a member of Alexei Navaly's Anti-corruption Foundation who published an report on Medvedev's "secret cottage" in the Ivanovo Region.

In 2014, it was decided that a bridge would be built across the Kerch Strait to connect Crimea to Russia. Construction began in 2016 and is expected to be finished by 2018.

The contractor is the company Stroygazmontazh, belonging to businessman Arkady Rotenberg, who is close to Vladimir Putin. The United States has imposed sanctions against companies involved in the construction of the bridge.