What if the people of Ukraine do not want this?
Neutral sounds better than civil war.
The Crimea region was the only part of Ukraine that had a noticeable opposition (42% voted against independence). Even in the Eastern parts of Ukraine there was no region with more than 13% of votes against independence.
Donbas/Luhansk also ran referendums in 2014, along with Crimea, with ~90% support for independence. These polls were denounced as unconstitutional and illegal by Kiev.
And, while it was denounced as not a free and fair vote, realistically Kiev would not ever have allowed these votes to happen in any shape or form.
Not to mention the idea of holding a referendum with Russian troops occupying the area and no real outside observers is fundamentally off.
Even Kiev doesnt believe a vote without the troops would have had a markedly different result, which is why it rejects the idea of holding a vote at all on constitutional grounds.
Many in the USSR rejected the idea of Ukrainian independence based upon a similar principle of the inviolability of Soviet borders.
I don't know exactly what it would be or if it would be over 50%, but we should reject the obvious sham that Russia carried out.
Do you think that they are wrong?
Do you subscribe to Kyiv's view that holding a vote is a criminal offence?
Why do you support the prior authoritarian Ukrainian government?
How do you propose relocating Ukraine to the Bering Strait?
You're not contributing to the discussion (besides Putin did nothing wrong. It's all the West's fault anyway).
For all the talk of wanting peace and democracy, the U.S topples regimes like it's the national sport and calls for blood at the slightest opposition. You really don't have the necessary track record to claim moral superiority here, so a more nuanced take than "Putin is evil" would do everyone well. This time Ukraine and Europe will pay the price of your belligerent behaviour, maybe that will teach us to build a stronger leadership (... especially Germany) that doesn't follow whatever Washington says all the way across the Atlantic.