I lived in Kyiv for more than a year and watched both revolution and Russian invasion.
It was never about "soft power" influence the author and other media usually talk but about a lot of people being tired of poverty, corruption, and power abuse.
It was never about "American government winning hearts" but about Russian government sending caskets to Ukrainian families. I saw many neutral folks who became pro-West because of the attack on their homeland.
Pro-West media always spoke of a forceful annexation of Crimea by Russia while anti-West media always spoke of voluntary annexation (Crimea people voted to join Russia). What is correct in your opinion? There is so much spin from both sides I cannot tell which side is lying less.
A hypothetical voluntary annexation is equivalent to a messy divorce. Some open-ended questions include
1) What happens to the private property owned by citizens of Ukraine? Citizens of Russia? Citizens of a random third-party country?
2) How is government property transferred? There's some obvious non-commercial real estate here (parks, beaches) as well as commercial (government buildings)? What happens to a property publicly financed by bonds (stadiums, airports, railroads) or other mechanisms?
3) How's national debt handled? Crimea historically attracted more government subsidies than the tax revenues collected, so in a sense it played quite a significant role in formation of that debt. Do certain obligations by Ukrainian government get marked as Crimean, pending the bondholders' approval? Does the working group define some pro rata share of the debt everyone agrees on? Or does Crimea gets to start with a clean slate, while Ukraine gets stuck (ha-ha!) with the bills accummulated over the decades?
Even with an amicable separation some of those issues could take years to figure out (Grexit and Brexit being good examples of complexity). Complete absence of any work in this matter shows that Russia was less interested in establishing its rule of law over Crimea and more in destabilizing its parent entity.
Both. Russian forces occupied it, but Crimea's population is over 60% Russian. While the exact referendum poll numbers could have been fabricated (95% for), most of the polls after the referendum showed 80+% support.
It was actually 100% because both of the questions asked at the referendum meant secession from Ukraine; i.e. it wasn't a simple "yes" or "no", it was essentially "secede immediately" or "do it a bit later".
First: did the residents of Crimea prefer to be part of Ukraine or part of Russia?
Second: should residents of a region have the right to declare independence (or annex themselves to another country) without getting permission from the government of their current country?
The US fought a bloody war 150 years ago to settle this issue (no, US states do not have the right to leave). But they followed a different policy on Kosovo.
The Russians have been happy to recognize the right of Abkhazia and Crimea to determine their own path, but didn't grant the same rights to Chechnya (or recognize the split of Kosovo from Serbia).
China, with Tibet, Taiwan, and Hong Kong on its mind, did not show any support for Crimea's move to Russia.
I think these questions are a mute point here, because Crimea wasn't annexed to appease the people of Crimea; it was annexed to deliberately f* up Ukraine and boost Putin's popular support in Russia.
> The Russians have been happy to recognize the right of Abkhazia and Crimea to determine their own path
As long as "their own path" means being part of Russia. Had there been any political force even talking about any other path, they'd be swiftly suppressed, it's a felony in Russia to promote secession.
I would guess that it's a felony only if you promote secession from Russia. For instance, people living in Russia are playing some kind of role in the California secession movement ("Calexit") [1].
Oh of course I meant "secession from Russia". It's OK to promote any other kind of secession, as long as it does not contradict Kremlin policies (if it does, you could be a target of anything from low-level harassment to murder).
Crimeans just asked for the same right against Ukraine as Ukrainians asked against Russia. And it was direction population liked most. The same asked east of Ukraine which is at war now. This is how "soft power" works in these countries with a little help from western friends.
Kiev is indeed awesome place to visit however you should be a desperate guy to move there not being slav.
Crimeans just asked for the same right against Ukraine as Ukrainians asked against Russia.
They didn't "just ask", of course. A visit by 3,000 or so "vacationing" soldiers from a certain large, neighboring country had something to do with it also.
Just to set the record straight, even though no one is likely to read this.
> Crimeans just asked for the same right against Ukraine as Ukrainians asked against Russia.
Ukraine and Russia both declared independence from the USSR in the months before the USSR was officially dissolved in 1991 [1]. In Soviet times, Ukraine was not part of Russia; they were both constituent "Republics" of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, with the right to secede from the USSR, under the USSR constitution. They both exercised this right, but it is not correct that Ukraine asked for independence from Russia, since it was not part of Russia.
As for "help from western friends", President Bush in Kiev, in 1991, before Ukraine left the USSR, warned the Ukrainians against "suicidal nationalism"; he refused to meet with leaders of the pro-independence movement [2].
It was never about "soft power" influence the author and other media usually talk but about a lot of people being tired of poverty, corruption, and power abuse.
It was never about "American government winning hearts" but about Russian government sending caskets to Ukrainian families. I saw many neutral folks who became pro-West because of the attack on their homeland.