A planned referendum in Ukraine's Crimea region on whether to join Russia is completely illegitimate and violates the Ukrainian constitution, Reuters cited a U.S. State Department spokeswoman as saying on Thursday. "To be clear, the premise that Crimea could hold a local referendum or vote in their local parliament to succeed from Ukraine and join Russia is completely illegitimate under Ukraine's constitution," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told a briefing. -- SPA 21:58 LOCAL TIME 18:58 GMT تغريد