Billboards in Ukraine’s southern Crimea region urge people to vote in Sunday’s referendum and offer a choice between a map of the peninsula painted with a Russian flag or one emblazoned with a Swastika.<br /><br />One poster encourages people to vote to stop fascism, suggesting the vote was a way of stopping Ukraine’s far-right radicals coming to power.<br /><br />In the Soviet World War II “hero city” of Sevastopol, where part of the Russian Black Sea fleet is based, two residents reacted to the pro-Russia billboard campaign.<br /><br />One lady said: “Russia came here and imposed its own policies on us .. its own views with big money, saying everything will be well. Tell me. Is everything in Russia well?<br /><br />A local man said: It turned out that with Russia, it is more stable, because you’ve seen the mess on the streets of Kyiv.”<br /><br />Meanwhile a joint naval exercise started on Wednesday in the Black Sea just across the water from the Crimean Peninsula.<br /><br />A US guided-missile destroyer and part of the US Sixth Fleet headquartered in Italy, joined the manoeuvres with a Bulgarian naval frigate and three Romanian vessels.<br /><br />The US said exercises were planned before the crisis in Ukraine.
