Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has criticized Italy’s deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, for statements in support of Russia’s occupation of Crimea.

Salvini, who also heads Italy’s interior ministry, said during an interview with the Washington Post newspaper published on July 19 that Russia had the right to annex the Crimean peninsula because there had been “a referendum and 90 percent of the people voted for the return of Crimea to the Russian Federation.”