{"id":2077,"date":"2023-03-17T08:16:52","date_gmt":"2023-03-17T08:16:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/?p=2077"},"modified":"2023-03-17T08:16:52","modified_gmt":"2023-03-17T08:16:52","slug":"ukraine-war-how-the-wests-weak-reaction-to-crimeas-referendum-paved-the-way-for-a-wider-invasion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/2023\/03\/17\/ukraine-war-how-the-wests-weak-reaction-to-crimeas-referendum-paved-the-way-for-a-wider-invasion\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine war: how the west\u2019s weak reaction to Crimea\u2019s referendum paved the way for a wider invasion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephen G. F. Hall<\/a> is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Russian and Post-Soviet Politics at the University of Bath focusing on politics in the post-Soviet space and autocracies. This blog was originally published<\/a> on The Conversation on 15 March 2023.<\/em><\/p>\n

A\u00a0referendum<\/a>\u00a0was held in Crimea on March 16 2014, when the region was under military control, to ask voters whether they wanted to be part of Russia. The official result was a 96.7% vote for Russia.<\/p>\n

At the time Crimean public buildings were held by Russian soldiers, and the military were seen across the peninsula.<\/p>\n

The Russian authorities had cited the Kosovo precedent \u2013 where Nato had intervened against the Serbs to create\u00a0a protectorate over Kosovo<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 for the Crimean annexation. Russia had already used this rhetoric for its invasion\u00a0of its neighbour Georgia<\/a>\u00a0in 2008.<\/p>\n

There was little evidence that Crimea was\u00a0threatened<\/a>\u00a0within Ukraine and in need of an international rescue mission by Russia. But Russia under Putin had expressed\u00a0concern<\/a>\u00a0about ethnic Russians in Crimea, and talked of its history as part of\u00a0the Russian nation<\/a>. Russians colonised Crimea during the reign of Catherine the Great, and founded the port of Sevastopol.<\/p>\n

There were clear differences between Crimea and Kosovo. Crimea was not facing a threat from Kyiv. Human rights violations, as observed in Kosovo, were not being reported in\u00a0Crimea<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Majority approval \u2013 if such a thing happened in Crimea \u2013 is insufficient for annexation in international law. As such, there were instantly questions about the legality of the Crimean referendum and the\u00a0result<\/a>. Yet the example of Kosovo reappeared as\u00a0justification<\/a>\u00a0for the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Judging western reaction<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The annexation of Crimea and Russia\u2019s narrative about why it had the right to the territory raised policy and political challenges for Europe and the wider western world. Their reaction gave Russia a particular view of what it could do without a significant international pushback, which was to have massive ramifications for wider Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Russia gained the perception that the west was weak and could be\u00a0challenged<\/a>. It precipitated increased use of\u00a0nationalist rhetoric<\/a>. Russia also quickly sought a greater global role for itself, epitomised by the intervention in\u00a0Syria<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Putin had already seen Russia as\u00a0challenging<\/a>\u00a0the west before the annexation, but Crimea emboldened Russia. This, coupled with the\u00a0limited<\/a>\u00a0western sanctions over Russia\u2019s role in the shooting down of the\u00a0Malaysian flight MH17<\/a>\u00a0and US president Barack Obama\u2019s failure to respond militarily to Bashar Al-Assad\u2019s use\u00a0of chemical weapons<\/a>\u00a0in Syria, led to a Russian perception that it could push the west further without ramifications.<\/p>\n

Russia learnt from the Crimea annexation. A referendum was used again in September 2022 when Russia\u00a0illegally annexed<\/a>\u00a0four new territories from Ukraine.<\/p>\n

How annexation began<\/h3>\n

On February 27 2014,\u00a0\u201clittle green men\u201d<\/a>\u00a0dressed in khaki and carrying guns appeared on Ukraine\u2019s Crimean peninsula and began taking control of key military bases and the regional parliament in Simferopol. A pro-Russian government under Russian nationalist Sergei Aksyonov was quickly installed.<\/p>\n

At the time, the Russian government said the men were \u201clocal self-defence forces\u201d. However, a year after Crimea\u2019s annexation Putin admitted that the men were Russian\u00a0soldiers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Having dissolved the regional government and set up a more malleable administration, the Russian authorities proposed holding a referendum on\u00a0Crimea\u2019s status<\/a>. Aksyonov said the referendum should be fast-tracked. The reason given was that there had been \u201cdisorders with firearms<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

The referendum choice was changed from greater autonomy in Ukraine to including the\u00a0seceding<\/a>\u00a0of Crimea to Russia.<\/p>\n

What did Crimean people want?<\/h3>\n

The result of 96.7% of Crimean people voting to join Russia always looked suspect.<\/p>\n

There are plenty of signs that those who were involved in the March 16 referendum knew the whole thing was a farce. Igor Girkin, a former Russian army and security services officer involved in the Crimean annexation \u2013 and subsequent war in Donbas \u2013 said that the referendum was a\u00a0sham<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A report posted on the president of Russia\u2019s council on civil society and human rights website \u2013 which was taken down almost immediately \u2013 stated that the participation was likely\u00a0far less<\/a>\u00a0than 50%. Putin has admitted the Crimean annexation was\u00a0ordered<\/a>\u00a0weeks before the referendum and that Russian soldiers were deployed \u201cto help the inhabitants express their opinion<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

The options on the ballot were joining Russia or reverting to the 1992 autonomy statute. The latter gave the Crimean parliament the power to secede to Russia, an option deputies had already stated would happen if Crimeans didn\u2019t vote\u00a0the \u201cright\u201d way<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Previous polls may give some indications of Crimean feelings. From 2008 to 2011 the number of Crimean residents who saw Ukraine as their motherland rose from 32% to\u00a071.3%<\/a>, according to one report. An International Republican Institute poll in 2013 found that 53% of Crimeans wanted autonomy within Ukraine and 23% wanted to join\u00a0Russia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Two days before the referendum, a poll found\u00a070% claiming<\/a>\u00a0that they\u2019d vote to join Russia. If respondents were given other options \u2013 like an independent Crimea \u2013 support for joining Russia fell to\u00a053.8%<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, US academics found that\u00a085%<\/a>\u00a0of Crimeans believed Crimea was moving in the right direction a year after annexation.<\/p>\n

Indications for Putin<\/h3>\n

The Crimean annexation set up the Ukraine war. America\u2019s\u00a0messy withdrawal<\/a>\u00a0from Afghanistan further emphasised western weakness in Putin\u2019s mind. This, combined with\u00a0inaccurate intelligence<\/a>\u00a0from his security services, made Putin think that having successfully pulled off an event like Crimea he could do something bigger for the rest of Ukraine in 2022.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine in 2022 has fundamentally changed the world. The west has never been more\u00a0united<\/a>\u00a0than it is over Ukraine. This unity didn\u2019t exist after the Crimea invasion, but if it had the war might have been avoided.<\/p>\n

This blog was originally posted<\/a> on The Conversation<\/a> on 15 March 2023. All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of the IPR, nor of the University of Bath.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephen G. F. Hall is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Russian and Post-Soviet Politics at the University of Bath focusing on politics in the post-Soviet space and autocracies. This blog was originally published on The Conversation on 15 March 2023....<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1790,"featured_media":2078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security-and-defence"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/115\/2023\/03\/Soldiers.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1790"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}