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I don't think referenda make much of a difference. 96% of Crimea (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Crimean_status_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/201

by xster 5y ago

I don't think referenda make much of a difference. 96% of Crimea (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Crimean_status_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Crimean_status_referendum) voted to join Russia and 96% of Luhansk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Donbas_status_referendums https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Donbas_status_referendums) voted to leave Ukraine after the 2014 overthrow. Nothing much came out of it except 14,000 being killed in Donbas as result https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War#War_in_Donbas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrain....

codedokode 5y ago
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.
- severino 5y ago
  > 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.
  - codedokode 5y ago
    > Yet Ukraine had no intention at all to organize a "real" referenda under their laws 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.
- freeflight 5y ago
  How can you be sure they are not true? 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.
  - codedokode 5y ago
    Russian government has a long history of meddling with elections, non-admission of candidates, falsifying results, for example [1] or [2]. Therefore they cannot be trusted, especially in this case. 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_gubernatorial_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_2018_Primorsky_Krai_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Moscow_City_Duma_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Moscow_City_Duma_election
    - weberer 5y ago
      >The same with Catalonia. Wait, what? Catalonia had nothing to do with Russia.
    - White_Wolf 5y ago
      It's not exactly true that Russia was the cause of it. At least not fully. I'd share the blame between US, EU and Russia, equally. 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4
bzcat 5y ago
it pains me that in 21 century we still have to explain that voting at gunpoint from 3rd party (armed occupation from another country) can't possibly be considered valid. It's the same strategy Russia used to annex neighboring countries before WW2. - first they get their military in by any means necessary - then they take down any means of mass communication, TV towers, radio etc. Any leaders of the opposition will be killed or jailed. Only censored Russian propaganda will be shown. - then occupation army will establish a puppet government which will stage a referendum which asks to join Russia in some form. At that point it's rather irrelevant how the people vote because as Stalin said, it's not important who votes but rather who does the counting. I think Anne Applebaum in one of her books has described how it went down in the countries that Russia annexed. Looked eerily like following a flowchart and evidently still works and sounds plausible to some people. Scottish independence referendum seems to be a rather good example how such independence referendums really should look like to be accepted by the world.
baybal2 5y ago

by xster 5y ago

codedokode 5y ago

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.

severino 5y ago
> 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.
- codedokode 5y ago
  > Yet Ukraine had no intention at all to organize a "real" referenda under their laws 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.
freeflight 5y ago
How can you be sure they are not true? 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.
- codedokode 5y ago
  Russian government has a long history of meddling with elections, non-admission of candidates, falsifying results, for example [1] or [2]. Therefore they cannot be trusted, especially in this case. 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_gubernatorial_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_2018_Primorsky_Krai_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Moscow_City_Duma_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Moscow_City_Duma_election
  - weberer 5y ago
    >The same with Catalonia. Wait, what? Catalonia had nothing to do with Russia.
  - White_Wolf 5y ago
    It's not exactly true that Russia was the cause of it. At least not fully. I'd share the blame between US, EU and Russia, equally. 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4

bzcat 5y ago

it pains me that in 21 century we still have to explain that voting at gunpoint from 3rd party (armed occupation from another country) can't possibly be considered valid. It's the same strategy Russia used to annex neighboring countries before WW2. - first they get their military in by any means necessary - then they take down any means of mass communication, TV towers, radio etc. Any leaders of the opposition will be killed or jailed. Only censored Russian propaganda will be shown. - then occupation army will establish a puppet government which will stage a referendum which asks to join Russia in some form. At that point it's rather irrelevant how the people vote because as Stalin said, it's not important who votes but rather who does the counting. I think Anne Applebaum in one of her books has described how it went down in the countries that Russia annexed. Looked eerily like following a flowchart and evidently still works and sounds plausible to some people. Scottish independence referendum seems to be a rather good example how such independence referendums really should look like to be accepted by the world.

baybal2 5y ago