Sidenote: I know a bunch of people from Crimea and many things we take for granted are surprisingly complex for them. People from Cuba or Iran at least have the certainty of which country they are in.
And; if you lived in Laos, Cuba, Cambodia or Afganistan: you would currently be taking the opposite stance.
We owe it to ourselves to not permit the affectations of propaganda to convince us that we are consistently right, the truth on the ground is much more complicated.
I certainly believe Crimea is an invaded territory of Ukraine, but I cannot pretend that it's a wise notion to demerit the entire conflict down to "Crimea is in Ukraine".
It does nothing to help the people there, and is completely meaningless in the face of my initial comment: that while I could sell games to Ukrainians, I could not allow them to play from within Crimea... a territory you claim; is Ukraine. The implicit argument you just made is that we have created sanctions against Ukraine itself.
And, most likely, your personal allegiance would be Russian.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Crimea#Ethnici...
And I'm not saying considering yourself Russian means you have allegiance to Russia, but I think there is a strong correlation between the two. Even if there's less of a correlation than I think, the percentage which considers themselves Russian is over twice that of the percentage which considers themselves Ukrainian. Maybe the Tatars align more with Ukraine than Russia, improving the balance, but idk.
Even though you have the results of "demographics" survey of 1989 that put "Russian" populace at 67%.
This gives us a great idea of how likely a Crimean who considers themselves Russian would actually vote between the two and that while the correlation is strong, it might not be strong enough to suggest Crimeans would favor Russia and while Crimea is still clearly, the most Russian-friendly Ukrainian state, the decision between the two is much closer than I previously thought.
Edit: to add, I have talked with a Crimean who supports Ukraine, but they say the outcome of a vote would very likely be pro-Russia, even before they started shipping Russians in and pre-occupation.
> but they say the outcome of a vote would very likely be pro-Russia, even before they started shipping Russians in and pre-occupation
I heard similar opinions too, but it might vary on who you ask. E.g. we talk about information bubbles on the Internet, but they exist IRL too. That is to say, hearsay is not proof. And even if it were true, one might keep in mind that the reasons for that might not be obvious. E.g. there had been a fair amount of anti-Ukrainian propaganda on the Russian state TV (which broadcasted in Crimea as well) starting with 2000s or so.
Or here's a thought exercise, from another perspective: would you say if US made a poll in Monterrey (Mexico) about whether the people in there wanted to join US, and >50% of them said yes, it would have been justifiable (in at least some practical sense) to annex it? Or Montreal/Canada, for example. It's close enough to the border.