The seizure of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula by Russia is, apparently, one of the main sources of pride for people in the Russian Federation. If polling in Russia can be believed, there is more cause for celebration over the theft of Crimea than there is cause to celebrate the bravery of Yuri Gagarin. And more Russians take pride in the events – in another country – of February and March 2014 than take pride in the national treasures produced by Dostoevsky and Tolstoy.
According to the poll, the only thing that Russians take more pride in is the role Russia played in defeating Nazi Germany in World War Two. This, of course, is rather strange; because one of the precursors to the Second World War was the appropriation, by military force, of land from one country by another country, ostensibly on the grounds of commonality based on language and the “need” to defend ethnic brothers.
The pride that is felt by the Russian people is misplaced, in fact they are celebrating the first military land grab – and subsequent occupation – in Europe since the Second World War. Their pride can be based on a few things, and a lack of knowledge of the facts would be top of the list. Some also argue that Crimea has a special place in the hearts of many Russians because of fond memories of childhood holidays there. Well, I remember a wonderful holiday in Dorset as an 11-year-old, but I am not about to declare myself the legitimate authority, with sovereignty over Poole.
Another popular myth polluting the minds of some, even international observers, on recent events in Crimea is that it was always a part of Russia, and that maybe when Khrushchev “gifted” Crimea to Ukraine in 1954 this was some kind of historical travesty. The first part of that line of thinking is untrue, and the second is irrelevant. A look at the history of Crimea demolishes the first argument and a look at the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, combined with a reading of the Belavezha accords of 1991, and a glance at the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 are reasons enough to say that the second part of that argument is, simply, utterly wrong.
Background established, how was this peninsula wrestled away (for the time being) from Ukraine in early 2014? What’s the reality behind this story that is the perverse source of pride for people in Russia?
Feb. 20, 2014
After the military operation to take over the peninsula, medals were issued to the Russian soldiers who had participated in these events, and Feb. 20, 2014 is the date stated on that medal as the beginning of the Crimea operation. For those not paying attention, these are the soldiers that Russia denied were Russian soldiers, but to reporters on the ground in Crimea (like Simon Ostrovsky, then with Vice News) it was quite obvious that the men without insignia were Russian soldiers.
On the same day, protesters were being brutally slaughtered by sniper fire on the streets of Kyiv.
Feb. 22, 2014
Yanukovych was extracted from Ukraine by Russian Special Forces. Vladimir Putin has admitted that he oversaw this operation and when it was over, in the early hours of the morning, he personally ordered the takeover of Crimea.
Feb. 26, 2017
The Russian military fanned out from their bases on Crimea and moved into positions to allow them to swiftly move to grab key infrastructure on the peninsula once the operation started in earnest.
Feb. 27, 2014
At 04:20 Russian soldiers took control of the Parliament building of Crimea. They worked through the night, going through the building room by room to make sure that they had complete control, and disabled the security cameras that were documenting their activities.
An emergency session of Crimea’s parliament was called. Several members of parliament who were officially recorded as being present at and voting in this session have stated that they were not in attendance, and so the legitimacy of events on this day are questionable even from the starting point of whether the session had a quorum. One person who was barred from attending was the incumbent prime minister of the autonomous republic, Anatolii Mohyliov. Under pressure from the attendant military personnel, all heavily armed, a decision was announced that conferred the title of prime minister on Sergey Aksyonov.
Aksyonov had been a member of Crimea’s parliament since 2010, when the last legitimate election was held in Crimea. His party, Russian Unity, had won 4 percent of the vote in that year, and as a result the faction he led had 3 seats out of the 100 seat legislature. Hardly a resounding mandate to lead, nor, indeed, was there a resounding mandate from the people of Crimea for “unity” with Russia.
It will no doubt surprise few readers that the man hand-picked by Vladimir Putin to be the “political” front to the Crimea operation is widely believed to have a background in organized crime.
The outcome of the military takeover of parliament and the illegitimate installation of Aksyonov as head of the parliament resulted in an order, at that time rather blurred and short on detail, to hold a referendum on the status of Crimea.
Fast Forward…
In the days that followed, the date of the planned referendum was brought forward on two occasions. Clearly Vladimir Putin was worried that a drawn-out process could come undone as world leaders started to understand, and condemn, his actions on the peninsula. So Putin pressed on.
The lead up to the referendum was accompanied, obviously, by an extensive propaganda campaign, much of which was aimed at presenting an image of Ukraine as a Nazi state that had been taken over by extremists and nationalists. As time has shown us, nothing in fact is further from the truth. The numbers of people in Ukraine with any kind of far-right views are considerably lower than anywhere else in Europe.
The propaganda played to the ears of the outside world was that the people of Crimea needed protection from the (invented) threat of Ukrainian nationalists. Imagine for a moment that this was true, and that extremists were in fact heading to Crimea to terrorize the local population – Crimea is home to two million people, how many “extremists” would it take to “terrorize” that number of people? This piece of propaganda, actually believed by some, is ludicrous. The fact is, no threat existed to the people of Crimea.
March 16, 2014
At this point, the term “referendum” needs to be put in inverted commas. It is true that people in Crimea did cast ballots on this date. Some, we have no idea how many. But we can be certain that the officially pronounced “results” from the (Russian ordered, Russian controlled, held at gun point, and illegitimate) “referendum” are a fabrication.
The Kremlin has repeatedly insisted that its decision to incorporate Crimea into the Russian Federation was as a result of the freely expressed wishes of the people of Crimea, and, the logic follows, their rights of self-determination should be respected. This narrative fails on several points:
- Votes influenced by blatant lies and propaganda cannot be considered to be a rational basis for anything;
- A vote held under military occupation by the forces of a third party country cannot be deemed to legitimate, on many, many levels;
- And, the kicker – the numbers just don’t stack up.
The population of Crimea is two million, it is true that there are many people living there who consider themselves to be ethnically Russian, and we can even agree that those people constitute a slim majority of the population of Crimea, but, the announced “results” of the “referendum” were that 83.1 percent of Crimean voters cast a ballot (the norm on this peninsula, where politics is seen by ordinary citizens as a game played by the rich regardless of their wishes or needs, would be around 40 percent turnout) and of that enormous turnout an amazing 96.77 percent voted to become part of the Russian Federation.
The three largest ethnic groups on the peninsula are, in order, Russian, Ukrainian, and Tatar. The Tatar population almost totally boycotted the “referendum” and so as they make up 12 percent of the population that would mean that the turn out of the Ukrainian and Russian populations was as high as 94.4 percent. Who believes that?
A total of 94.4 percent of the ethnically Ukrainian and Russian residents of Crimea voted? And, of those, 96.77 percent asked to join Russia? Who believes this?
There is certainly a strong sense of affinity with Russia, as the dominant part of the Soviet Union that these countries were both once a part of, in Crimea. That affinity is particularly strong amongst older residents (or, voters) of the peninsula, but the younger people of Crimea, those who have no sense of what the Soviet Union was, and who have only known Ukraine as their homeland, we are expected to believe that 94.4 percent of them voted and 96.77 percent approved of a change of sovereign control of their homes and lives?
If someone can make you believe that 96.77 percent of the Ukrainian population of Crimea voted as announced by the Russian Federation you are out of your mind.
Russia took control of Crimea because Russia sees it as an important military base. Anything else that has been said in an attempt to justify the illegal attempted annexation of Ukrainian land, and affect the lives of two million Ukrainian citizens, is, demonstrably, a lie.
Russia insists that the matter is closed. But it is not.
