Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[olemars]

Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten interviews some of the Crimean parliament members who "voted" for the pro-russian administration (presumably through telepathy)

Rules require that at least 51 representatives be present in order to hold a qualified vote. The new goverment says 61 members of parliament took part. Aftenposten’s research shows, however, that only 36 were present.     

 - The system which registers who voted, and what we voted for or against, shows I did cast a vote. But I was not there. Neither were a large majority of my colleagues, says Sumulidi.  Representative Irina Klyuyeva also participated in the vote, according to the official records, but she was not present either. 

- I didn’t want to go, because I knew what was going to happen. Only pro-Russia representatives were present, and they numbered far below 50. In other words, a legal vote was not possible, she tells Aftenposten.

But Dmitry Polonsky, vice chairman of the party, says «it was the people who decided that we needed a new government and a referendum. This is our will, nobody is forcing us».

[XXSockXX]

I've seen an interview with the Ukrainian ambassador this morning. He basically gave the Ukrainian government's version, that they weren't going to give up Crimea and that polls showed that Crimea wanted to stay in Ukraine. These polls don't mean much anymore of course. I doubt they can actually do much to disrupt the vote, and military acts would be pretty suicidal right now.
The West will not accept the referendum as legal, but they won't be doing much, except for more sanctions of course.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

I don't think they're true: Ukraine knows that it doesn't stand a chance in case of an open war. Maybe try to disrupt the vote in other ways, but probably no more.

Main problem of Ukrainian armed forces is airforce. It is where Russia has huge dominance. Our air defense is another problem, not only it has seen very little modernization, we have a large chunk of it in Crimea and it is too easy to disable those when AA bases surrounded.. Plus navy where most of our ships are blockaded in port...

On the land situation is different, Russia has no total dominance overall and in very bad shape in Crimea. Because Crimean forces have very few tanks and heavy artillery in the area while we have both. So should we start anti-terrorism operation against unknown armed people in green uniform, those have no chances to survive unless Russian Airfoce and Navy will get involved

[Helgoland]

And then they'd have to drop the charade... Or just do the 'protecting Russian citizens' bit again.

[XXSockXX]

According to German media the Crimean Prime Minister has announced first plans for after the referendum. If I understood it correctly, Crimeans would be able to choose between Ukrainian and Russian citizenship in case Crimea joins Russia. Russian and the Crimean Tatar language would both be official languages. Ukrainian not apparently, though I don't know what the status of Ukrainian is right now in Crimea. The article approximates that 25% of the population are Ukrainians, 10% Crimean Tatars, the rest Russians.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

XXSockXX, You see... There are two millions of Ukrainians living in Russia*. How do you think how many Ukrainian schools in Russia? Zero.

*That is according to Russian Census... and I don't believe that Russian census is accurate

[XXSockXX]

Hm, according to wikipedia, there are 2 million people in Crimea. Right now Ukrainian is the official language while Russian and the Crimean Tatar language are recognised minority languages. 77% of Crimeans gave Russian as their first language in a poll.
If that information is true, then the plans sound pretty anti-Ukrainian to me (Ukrainian is not offical language anymore and people can choose to lose citizenship and presumably leave the country.) That may be conjecture on my part though.
It sounds a bit less aggressive here, where it basically says people would not need to return their Ukrainian passports.

[Owlbread]

The thing is though that poll was from 2001, over 13 years ago. Given that minority groups and the Ukrainian language speaking population of Ukraine have grown in number since then it is unclear what the situation is right now. I don't know about recent Russian immigration to Crimea or the scale of it.

[Darvi]

from 2011, over 13 years ago.

Hands up, how many other people here are from the future?

[Helgoland]

I thought Europe was generally about ten years aheadd of America...

[XXSockXX]

from 2011, over 13 years ago.

Hands up, how many other people here are from the future?

Your media is lying, there are no mistakes or typos in this thread. 

The thing is though that poll was from 2001, over 13 years ago. Given that minority groups and the Ukrainian language speaking population of Ukraine have grown in number since then it is unclear what the situation is right now. I don't know about recent Russian immigration to Crimea or the scale of it.

Yeah, well, I found that the passport thing sounded a bit more concerning than the language thing, but I may be reading too much into it. This all sounds pretty provisional and also the referendum has to happen first. Whatever comes out of that will be an odd situation anyway.

Moscow seems prepared though, they have taken up paying the Crimean budget the moment Kiev cut it off.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

The thing is though that poll was from 2001, over 13 years ago. Given that minority groups and the Ukrainian language speaking population of Ukraine have grown in number since then it is unclear what the situation is right now. I don't know about recent Russian immigration to Crimea or the scale of it.

Yep, we had  planned census in 2010  but since Yanuk came to power we got it delayed, delayed and delayed. Many say it was done intentionally to hide unpleasant facts and to make rigging elections easier

There are more Crimean Tatars now, both in absolute numbers and as percentage. They still got people back from central Asia, they have higher birthrates and Crimea, as most Ukrainian regions has net negative migration (It is obvious that Crimean Tatars are less inclined to migrate away). 12% of Tatars is very outdated and it may be as high as 30%

As for migration from Russia. There are one  important moment here: most immigrants from Russia to Ukraine are not ethnic Russians but North Caucasians so that 6% of others may have seen a nice raise, too

[Helgoland]

30%? Even if just a small fraction of them takes up arms, that could turn out to be a nasty insurgency. Do you have any (non-official) data?

[Ghazkull]

Well what i think might have been possible (if russia hadn't moved the date of the referendum so far forward) would be to fastrack elections in Ukraine to form a definitive Government and thus disable Russias claims that Ukraine is unstable.

No matter what Putin said before, shouldn't that have moved him in a position where he can no longer justify his own troops nor Crimean Self Defense Units in the Area or if those "Self-Defense Units" are still there wouldn't that be a nice front to allow Ukrainian Army to disarm them?

How realistically possible would it be for Ukraine to move the date of the Referendum back(by negotiating with Russia) or interfere with it to keep it stalled until a proper Ukrainian Government has been elected?

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Oops, I meant 20%. Should proofread better.