These number are provided by Russian government. How can you be sure that they are true?
Also, those so called "referenda" did not conform to Ukrainian laws.
Also, those so called "referenda" did not conform to Ukrainian laws.
Yet Ukraine had no intention at all to organize a "real" referenda under their laws. Instead, they preferred to keep on bombing those rebel regions in Eastern Ukraine. Now, they ask Russia to stop doing the very same thing.
Why should they cede their land to someone? And why should referendum be held only in one region, and not in the whole country? No country will agree to this. Will Putin organize a referendum if I suggest that my city separate from Russia and join European Union? Did Putin or Eltsin organize such referendum in Chechnya?
It doesn't matter whether Ukraine should or should not have hold such referendum. It is Russian soldiers who crossed the border and pulled the trigger first in 2014, not Ukranian. The war (as almost every war) is there because Putin and many Russians want more land, more glorious victories and more political influence, not because someone didn't organize a referendum.
During these last 30 years there's been 3 different referenda about Crimea, all with roughly the same outcomes.
> Also, those so called "referenda" did not conform to Ukrainian laws.
US independence did also not conform to British laws, the existence of Kurdistan is not conform with Iraqi or Syrian national laws, Catalonian independence would not be conform with Spanish law, yet there is a human right to self determination.
What's also not conform, with a whole slew of national laws, is violently overthrowing a democratically elected government, as it happened in Kyiv 2014.
You cannot compare US war for independence with Crimea occupation because in US it was an internal movement to become idependent from a metropoly, but in Ukraine the events that occured were caused by Russian military intervention with purpose of annexation of Ukrainian territories. Before Russian intervention in 2014, there were no significant efforts to become independent, there were no war and nobody was dying.
The same with Catalonia.
> What's also not conform, with a whole slew of national laws, is violently overthrowing a democratically elected government
First, their president wasn't overthrown, because he has left the country himself. Second, that doesn't give Russia a right to annex territories.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_2018_Primorsky_Krai_...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Moscow_City_Duma_election
Wait, what? Catalonia had nothing to do with Russia.
Worth watching this for a background of how the whole thing started. The guy was pretty on point with it, and it checks out from other sources too.
UnCommon Core: The Causes and Consequences of the Ukraine Crisis John J. Mearsheimer - The University of Chicago - 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4
So it would only count as a regime change if he stayed to get killed by an angry mob?
> that doesn't give Russia a right to annex territories
But states and their parliaments very much have a right not to acknowledge a new central government that came to power trough violence.
The Crimean state parliament did not recognize the new Ukrainian government, thus held a referendum what to do about the situation [0]
Said state parliament was voted in power by the people of Crimea before anything in Kyiv even escalated.
You acting like that doesn't matter, so you can regurgitate "Russian annexation!" does not only deny the Crimean state parliament agency, it very casually denies the Crimean people, as represented by the state parliament, their own representation.
So unless you have evidence how Russia replaced the whole state parliament, how Russia actually meddled in the referendum, that long you are spreading disinformation when you keep calling the situation as annexation.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Crimean_status_referendum
It doesn't count as "been overthrown". Also, there is no evidence that he would have been killed. He might go under a trial in a court though.
There is one important thing you don't mention: the "referendum" was held after occupation of Crimea Peninsula by Russian military. Specifically, the article you refer to says that Russian military occupied Crimea on February, 27 and the referendum was held on March, 16.
Therefore, parliament could not vote freely as its members were not protected from pressure by Russian military authorities. You cannot vote freely when surrounded by enemy soldiers. Also at that time the territory was controlled by Russia and the parliament had no real power anymore.
Also, I do not know if Ukranian law at that time allowed a region to declare independence. You cannot hold a referendum whose outcome would contradict the law. For example, you cannot hold such a referendum in Russia.
> You acting like that doesn't matter, so you can regurgitate "Russian annexation!"
Let's look at the definition of "annexation":
> Annexation in international law, is the forcible acquisition of one state's territory by another state and is generally held to be an illegal act.
Russian army has occupied the territory earlier that anything else happened. Therefore it is an annexation. There was no significant movement for independence of Crimea before occupation.
> it very casually denies the Crimean people, as represented by the state parliament, their own representation.
Do Crimean people or their Parliament now have a right to separate from Russia if they change their mind? They don't. Does it mean that Putin, as you say, "casually denies the Crimean people their own representation"?
I don't think there are many countries where a region has a right to declare an independence. There are things that you cannot change with a referendum.
Also, you need to know that Russians are not natives in Crimea. By UN standard, natives are those people, who live in place for 200 years.
Russians expelled native Crimeans from Crimea to Ukraine, to substitute Ukrainians died during genocide, and to Siberia.
They used situation with Crimean Goths as excuse, because Germans used Crimean Goths as translators.
After expelling of natives, Crimean land was used as prize for soviet officers. They had no experience of agriculture in dry climate, so they cut vines and tried to farm potatoes, which caused famine. Also, Crimea was cut from RF, so RF was unable to help.
To fix situation, Crimea was returned back to Ukraine, to rebuild economy, because Ukrainians knows Crimea climate for more than millenia and Crimea was part of Ukraine since breakup of Russian Empire. However, Russians portait this return of Crimea as gift to Ukraine and want to stole it back.