https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Agency_for_Global_Media
Apparently these guys did a poll, or Gallup did a poll that these guys considered legitimate, and they found that about 80% of Crimeans believed the Euromaidan coup government was illegitimate. About 80% of Crimeans thought the referendum to join the Russian Federation was legit and reflected the will of the people (Western Ukrainians, on the other hand, did not believe this), and about 70% of Crimeans viewed Russia's intervention as a good thing and thought that joining the RF would improve their quality of life.
Can anyone corroborate this? I'm just poking through Wikipedia sources. Because if this is true it kind of drives a stake through the heart of the notion that Russia invaded and annexed Crimea. It sounds a lot more like the people of Crimea overwhelmingly decided that being part of Russia was a better deal and enthusiastically switched their allegiance.
https://www.refworld.org/docid/469f38ec2.html
If this timeline is at all accurate Crimea and Ukraine have been doing rounds about whether Crimea and Sevastopol should be part of Russia or Ukraine, what languages should be considered official state languages, and all sorts of fights over who holds what political and legal powers in Crimea, and these disagreements have gone on continuously since the dissolution of the USSR without stopping.
As far back as 1998 a majority of Crimeans were pro joining the Russian Federation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_the_Crimean_Tatars
Also, this shit. I'm open to the possibility that some of this is western exaggeration but on face value it looks like the deportation, cultural genocide, and mass murder of tens of thousands of people on Stalin's orders because Beria said they were traitors. And things have remained bad and complicated for them since as they were outnumbered by Russians when the Soviets finally let them go home in the late 80s and have had trouble with a large portion of Crimean Tartars struggling to get Ukrainian citizenship through the 90s and having political disputes with the Russian majority as well as some Ukrainian governments.
Also, apparently in the mid nineties a little over 50% of Ukrainians preferred Russian as their first language, and there's been constant disputes where Kiev tries to force everyone to speak Ukrainian and the Russian speaking half of the country pushes back.
Based on reading a lot of random articles this war would have been inevitable even without NATOs bullshit. Kiev has spent thirty years trying to impose Ukrainian nationalism on a population that is about 50% Russian speaking and the Russian Speakers have never wanted that. Kiev has constantly asserted over the years that Ukrainian was the only allowed official language in Ukraine, then been forced to walk back on that because obviously. The borders of Ukraine and Russia went from being a formality under the USSR to actual national borders with all the resulting economic, military, and political problems with the dissolution of the USSR, But Kiev's attempts to create a single unified Ukrainian nationality were always bogus and ridiculous since so much of the population had so many cultural and linguistic and historical and political ties across the border. The EuroMaidan coup just pressed on fault lines that had been present since the dissolution of the USSR, and the declaration of the DPR and the LPR was basically the Russian speaking minority asserting that they wouldn't be allow themselves to be forced in conform with Kiev's Ukrainian Nationalist agenda. And then this year Russia was finally forced to step in because the inter ethnic, interlinguistic, and intercultural dispute between Ukraine and it's Russian speaking minority was about to turn in to a fucking massacre.
NATO and western support of Ukrainian Nationalist factions and outright Nazis was a factor, but NATO was just pouring fuel on a fire that was already burning by empowering Kiev to constantly attempt to alienate and marginalize the huge Russian speaking minority.
The dissolution of the USSR was a fucking mistake and nationalism is for idiots. And the Crimean Tartars got totally fucked by Stalin and the Soviet governments that came after him.
a stake through the heart of the notion that Russia invaded and annexed Crimea
You've missed the more important part of this lie.
Russia was already there, Russia administered it as part of their leasing of the port for military access. The Russian military managed all the checkpoints, had warships there, and a base there.
Russia didn't "invade". The "takeover" was literally a change of flag and signing of documents by the Crimean transition government on the basis of their referendum.
They certainly had a hand in making sure that they got exactly who they wanted in power, but the presentation of it as an invasion is nonsensical. A flag changed and some documents were signed, no fighting occurred, no invasion had to occur because they already ran it. The entire "invasion of Crimea" narrative is a lie.
EDIT: Repeated myself a bit here because I went away and came back halfway through writing the comment, oops.
It's kind of the same situation as with the US base at Guantanamo after the Cuban revolution.
Was the Russian reunification with Crimea a messy process? Absolutely.
Did they follow all of the rules of the so-called rules-based international order? No.
Did it make Ukrainian nationalists and the government in Kiev unhappy? It certainly did.
Was the referendum free and fair? Probably not.
Did the referendum reflect popular will? It probably did.
Do most people in Crimea prefer to be part of Russia? Absolutely.
Do a majority of people in Crimea want to return to the Ukraine? No way in hell.
From my understanding, russia invaded and annexed crimea but crimeans overwhelmingly supported the annexation
They wanted a referendum to join russia but ukraine wouldn't give them one
Even if the post-annexation referendum was bullshit, which it probably was, western polling agencies show crimeans massively supported the outcome
Herp derp democracy! *Crimea overwhelmingly votes to join Russia and seems very happy about it years later* NOOOO ILLEGAL REFERENDUM ELECTION AT GUN POINT COPE COPE COPE!
just watch any "crimea" docu from the last years ..they are all the same ..a western reporter searching and searching for oppressed people , but everyone is really liking it..
Crimea was part of Russia, the RFSR, until the 1954, until it was transferred to Ukraine without any referendum or popular will. Russians/Russians speakers have outnumbered Ukrainians in the area since it was colonized by Catherine the Great. IDK the full story on the ground, but it's not at all suspicious that the people there would have wanted to reject the Banderites that came to power in 2014.
until it was transferred to Ukraine without any referendum or popular will
:corn-man-khrush:
"popular will" in that case is pretty sketch, since the Soviets violently expropriated and deported all the Crimean Tartars about ten years prior. But yeah, Crimea has never had any meaningful connection to Ukraine beyond arbitrary lines on a map.
Honestly Ukrainian politics are fucking wild. Oligarchs fighting oligarchs, back and forth with the status of Russian speakers. It's a mess.
Honestly on its face the idea of the various referenda in Donbass and Crimea and the secession of these states being illegitimate only makes sense when you ignore that people speak Russian there and that Ukraine's economy is far weaker, not to mention that the government collapsed. In that case, what person in their right mind wouldn't vote for integrating with the RF?
Yeah the Western Media narrative is based on absolute BS. no mention what so ever of the decades long ethnic tension, the illegitimacy of the Euromaidan government, or the general weakness and poverty of Kiev. Ukraine's borders are a historical mistake. If they were so whipped up about having a Ukrainian ethno-state they should have given the 30-50% of the country that is ethnic Russian back to the Russians and saved themselves all this trouble.
Yeah dude I know Russia is repressive and racist and homophobic and misogynistic and bad in all kinds of ways. Doesn't mean that Crimea didn't want to join them.
