As last summer the separatist government of Catalonia, an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, announced a referendum on leaving Spain and later staged it on Oct. 1, pro-Russian whistle-blowers and Russian media started to draw a parallel between it and the plebiscite staged by Russia in Ukraine’s Crimea back in March 2014. Can these two referendums be equated with each other?
OP-ED
Yuri Zoria: Catalonia is (not) Crimea. The differences and commonalities of two referendums
(FILES) Unidentified masked individuals hold a Russian flag as they block the Trade Union building in Simferopol, the administrative center of Crimea, on March 1, 2014.
