MOSCOW. June 30 (Interfax) - The recognition by the Russian Prosecutor General's Office of the illegality of the decision by the Russian Soviet Federative Social Republic to hand Crimea over to Ukraine in 1954 has no real legal consequences, a source familiar with the situation told Interfax on Tuesday.
"The Russian Prosecutor General's office has just acknowledged the fact, namely that the handover of Crimea to Ukraine under Nikita Khrushchev was unconstitutional because the relevant decisions were not made by the authorized government bodies," the source said.
"In the current environment and reality, there is no authority that would be able to repeal that decision," he said. "Though there is no more need for that. Crimea is back as part of Russia, and the issue has gone into political territory," the source said.
With regard to another parliamentary request received by the Prosecutor General's Office - whether the recognition of the independence of the Baltic republics by the USSR State Council was legal - the source said an inquiry into the matter has begun.
"It is obvious that here too the answer will be similar to the Crimea request. The legal decision recognizing the independence of the Baltic countries is defective in that it was made by an unconstitutional body," the source said.
At the same time, he said that the response by the Prosecutor General's Office should be "more balanced." "In recognizing any particular pivotal decision as illegal, one can go too far, up to a point of the problem of the legitimacy of the creation of the USSR and other states," the source said.
This is why decisions on parliamentary requests "should take into account not only the legal, but also the political aspect of the issues being raised," he said.