Not a surprise.
I expect it to be approved in the forthcoming referendum and then Crimea can accede to the Russian Federation under the new federal law being prepared to facilitate it.
There will be two questions on the ballots.
“The first one: Are you in favor of Crimea becoming a constituent territory of the Russian Federation.
The second one: Are you in favor of restoring Crimea’s 1992 constitution,” Temirgaliev said.
According to the 1992 constitution, the autonomous republic is part of Ukraine but has relations with Kiev, defined on the basis of mutual agreements.
Sevastopol residents will take part in the referendum, despite the city enjoying a special status and not officially being a part of Crimea, according to Sergey Shuvainikov, a Crimean MP.
Saint Obama has miraculously brought about the self determination via democracy of an ethnic Ukrainian minority.......................THE RUSSIANS!
Its immmaculate annexation!
All Hail Saint Obama!
He is the WON!
( Double, even triple sarc.)
The referendum date has been moved up again from March 30 to March 16.
Kiev says its unconstitutional but its powerless to prevent the vote from being held under Russian protection.
And since it would have democratic legitimacy, Russia can then approve the accession of Crimea to the Motherland in response to wish of most of its people, who are ethnic Russian.
Kiev may be technically correct but its hard for it to argue the territory can’t vote to join Russia and nothing prevents Russia from making it de jure Russian territory after the referendum result is published.
Of course - just waiting for a hypocritical West to denounce it in 3, 2, 1...
How do we stop these people from expressing their own free will?
It works for me.
What was it that Stalin said?
It only matters who counts the votes.
So much for the Tatars sparking a new Afghanistan for the Rooskis, as some were hoping and wishing for yesterday.
I love headlines with initials like MPs, it is so much fun trying to guess what it means. Being a former Navy man I first wondered for a split second why the military police are involved in this. Then I thought, maybe it means member of parliament. Of course MPs would actally mean member parliaments rather than members of parliament and that doesn’t seem to make sense so I went to the link to find out what it is all about.
NATO invaded Serbia under false pretexts and then had the people living in its Kosovo province vote to leave Serbia.
The precedent is set, by NATO & US.
In my day, the presence of foreign troops on another country's soil without the permission of that other country was known as an invasion. BBC's wording makes it seem so benign.
The current ruler of Crimea, installed by the Russian invading army, is an organized crime figure whose nickname is the Goblin. I think that says it all.
In a few years California “voters” will pass a referendum to leave the USA and join Mexico. Book it.
I doubt Putin or his cronies will pay much attention to the words of Obama and Kerry going forward.
Putin knows the stock they are made of and it really does not factor much in their game plan. Obama and Kerry can run behind Putin yapping at his heels like little dogs and Putin will continue to ignore them just as he has been doing for the last few weeks.
The legacy media here in the US is such a joke, trying to claim all the words that spew from Obama and Kerry have any import with the Russians.
75% of Ukraines parliament voted to remove Yanukovick. That's self determination. I was for that while some here weren't.
Crimea's parliament votes to secede and join Russia. That's self determination. I'm for that.
That's holding to a consistant principle.
Will there be a conflict between russians and tartars?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/05/tartar-ukraine-sunni-muslims-threat-russian-rule-crimea
ANSCHLUSS.
After Crimea joins the Russian Federation then sections of East Ukraine will go about joining also.