Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev visited Crimea to hand out passports during Ukraine's presidential vote on Sunday, in a move denounced by Kiev as a "deliberate provocation".
In a symbolic demonstration of Moscow's hold over the peninsula it annexed in March, Medvedev began the two-day surprise visit by going to a migration office to hand out Russian passports.
"Best of luck with your new Russian passport," Medvedev told a young blonde woman at the office in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol, in images shown on Russian television.
The head of the Russian federal migration service who accompanied Medvedev, Konstantin Romodanovsky, said that 850,000 passports were in the process of being distributed to Crimeans and that another 900,000 were being printed.
The region has a population of about two million.
In Kiev, the foreign ministry slammed the visit, Medvedev's second to Crimea since the Russian takeover.
"A visit by the Russian prime minister to occupied Ukraine on the day of the presidential election in Ukraine is particular impudence and a deliberate provocation aimed at destabilising the situation in Ukraine," the ministry said in a statement issued moments after Medvedev's arrival.
Russia's takeover of Crimea, which came after government buildings were seized by pro-Moscow gunmen following the ouster of Ukraine's Kremlin-backed leader Viktor Yanukovych, was widely condemned by Western leaders.
The annexation, and Russia's alleged backing for well-armed separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, have brought relations between Moscow and the West to their lowest point since the end of the Cold War.
Medvedev first visited Crimea in late March and President Vladimir Putin attended Victory Day celebrations on May 9 in the region, where he said its return to Russia had restored a "historic truth".
On Monday Medvedev will visit the Artek camp, a famed children's centre on the Black Sea opened in 1925 that during the Soviet era hosted thousands of youths from the USSR and foreign countries.
The camp has fallen into disrepair and Russian authorities are expected to help restore it, among a slew of other projects for the region after the annexation.
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