DISINFO: Crimea united with Russia after referendum
SUMMARY
Relations between Russia and Western countries have deteriorated due to the situation in Ukraine and regarding Crimea, which reunited with Russia as a result of a referendum. The West accused Russia of interference and Moscow took retaliatory measures. Russia has been reportedly stating that it is counter-productive to communicate through the language of sanctions.
RESPONSE
This is a disinformation narrative claiming that the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea reunited with Russia as a result of a legal referendum. In reality, troops without identification marks - "little Green Men" - invaded Crimea in late February 2014, occupied government and parliament buildings and forced an unrecognised referendum on secession from Ukraine. First, Russian President Vladimir Putin used to say that there were no Russian troops in Crimea and that those armed people were members of a local militia. Then he recognised that they were servicemen of the Russian regular army who helped stage what he called a democratic referendum.
Russian aggression against Ukraine came in violation of the 1994 Budapest memorandum, which guaranteed Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity in exchange for its nuclear weapons, and the 1997 Ukrainian-Russian Treaty, in which both sides recognised each other's borders. According to what Russia considers to be official (but independently not verified) results, Russian authorities said over 80 per cent of voters took part in the self-styled Crimean referendum, with more than 95 per cent of the vote in favour of secession from Ukraine. However, there are no trustworthy statistics about the number of the voters and the percentage of support.
The Security Council of the United Nations issued a resolution on 27 March 2021 in support of the territorial integrity of Ukraine. The European Union has been following a strict policy of non-recognition of the illegal referendum’s results. Economic sanctions on Russia after its illegal annexation of Crimea and the ensuing war in Donbas were first applied by the EU on 17 March 2014 with new individuals and entities being added on 1 October 2020.
Read more disinformation cases about the alleged legality of the Crimean referendum.