The vote in the State Duma lower house was the penultimate legislative hurdle for the treaty, which was signed on Tuesday by President Vladimir Putin
...Second and fourth President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...and Crimea's leaders. The Duma also approved a new law on the absorption of Crimea into Russia.
The treaty and law still need to be rubber-stamped by the upper house Federation Council on Friday. However the Kremlin has said that it considers Crimea part of Russia since the signing of the treaty on Tuesday.
Out of 446 deputies voting, 445 voted to approve Russia's taking of Crimea and just one against, Ilya Ponomarev of the A Just Russia Party. Four deputies were absent from the 450-seat Duma.
After making his highly symbolic vote against, Ponomarev published a detailed and impassioned explanation of his move on his Live Journal blog.
"Today Russia has made a huge mistake which could prove tragic for the brotherly Russian and Ukrainian peoples, for all of Slavic unity and for the whole system of international relations," he said.
"Future generations will pay for mistakes that are made now," he said.
Ponomarev explained that he was not opposed to the idea of Russia taking the mainly Russian-speaking peninsula but that the process had happened too fast.
He said it would have been right to have first recognized Crimea's independence "and then wait a bit for things to calm down and convince everyone that this is not a Russia aggression... and then take the next step."
He said huge numbers of people in the Russian authorities, foreign ministry and security services understood the danger of the hurried move "but are scared of expressing their opinion".