there have been huge celebrations among the ethnic population in crimea as daniel sanford reports. >> reporter: wild scenes in simferopol last night as people who have longed to rejoin russia for almost a quarter century take a huge step towards their dream. >> we come back to russia. we happy. we all happy. >> reporter: the people here in the center of simferopol have got what they wanted. but how it came back b is going to have a lasting impact on international relations. the referendum produced an overwhelming vote in tpaeuf of leaving ukraine and joining russia. although the russian president vladimir putin consists it was consistent with international law, it remains hugely controversial. it was organized in less than a fortnight, while russian troops were already in effective military control of crimea. and it's not recognized by the fledgling government. if they choose to join crimea onto russia they will get sanctions from the european union. the fallout could escalate over the weeks ahead. with pro-russian protesters in mainland ukraine agitating for their own referendums rel

daniel sanford, bbc news, simferopol. >> reporter: let's show you what's happening here. a couple of coaches just gathered behind me. they're going to fly off to moscow today with talks with the russian parliament and the russian leadership there about the legal technicalities of crimea becoming part of the russian federation. for the first time in 60 years, crimea was part of russia until 1954 when the president gave crimea to ukraine. now in the wake of the referendum, it looks very likely indeed that they will impose sanctions on named russian individuals. there's a meeting in brussels. let's hear from the eu foreign policy chief catherine ashton. >> not surprisingly the top of our agenda will be a look at the ukraine. it is illegal in the constitution of ukraine and under international law. i call upon russia yet again to meet with ukrainian leaders and to start dialogue with them and to try and move to de-escalation as quickly as possible. we have seen no evidence of that. today we'll be continuing our discussions on the seriousness of the situation and also looking

and our correspondent daniel sanford is there for us. >> reporter: i'm standing right between the russian line and the ukrainians who came up the road. the russians are sitting in their armored personnel carrier with machine guns on top. there's about 30 russian men with guns, some of them machine guns pointing directly at the ukrainian soldiers. some of them standing more at ease. the ukrainians, who have walked up the hill to their normal place of work, came up here because they were under orders from kiev to try to get to their offices this morning. they are members of what was the 62nd fighter regimen. now the ukrainian 62nd regimen. this air base is their normal place of work. they, without putting their lives in danger, tried to get to their place of work. but three warning shots were fired. they decided it was getting too risky. the russians said they would shoot at their legs if they came any closer. they stopped. they are now holding position 20 or 30 meters from the first russian armored personnel carrier. >> so that's daniel sanford, our moscow correspondent, who has been at th

. >> daniel sanford, our correspondent, is there. i don't know how much of that press conference you were able to hear, daniel. how big a blow would it be to russia if they are formally thrown out of the g8. >> very striking what you heard. having to pay for their actions so far. it's an indication how limb the americans know about what russia's next move will be. if russia feel like they are thrown out of the g8, then that will be a blow to the pride of the russian leadership. i think this is something they knew was going to happen with when they took the actions in crimea. there will be a period of economic sanctions. the question for them was always how far the west was prepared to go and how much the west would be able to take to its own economies. that's the unanswerable question at the moment. governments like germany, france and of course the united states to a lesser extent. how far they had to go to damage their own economies in order to make sure russia answers that it was beyond the pale. >> our correspondent has learned of