There is no difference between what Russia has done in Crimea and what the United Kingdom did in Northern Ireland. The same could be said of what the USA did in Hawaii, California, Texas and Oklahoma.
Yeah... it's kinda' painfully obvious that people's will this referendum wasn't. Or at least not even remotely an accurate representation of it. More than a bit of a shame, as has been noted.
Even if it was the people's will, it's the will of the settlers who moved there during the colonisation of the territory, exploited by their motherland as political tools in landgrabs like the Crimean annexation.
I've been thinking. Apologies if I'm terribly wrong (I don't live in Russia so what do I know?) but it seems to me like the main reason people in Russia vote for United Russia and are happy with them being in government despite rampant corruption and disregard for human rights is that they have ensured that Russia is economically and socially stable. They are a slick, well oiled political machine with a vision of power and domination that appeals to the common Nationalist consciousness, plus there's a bit of demagoguery thrown in too with the anti-Western stuff.
If, however, that economic and social stability vanishes as a result of an economic collapse induced by Western sanctions, there is no reason for Russians to support Putin or United Russia. If the Russians came anywhere close to where they were in the 1990s the whole thing would come down like a house of cards.