Actual Results of Crimean Secession Vote Leaked

An anonymous reader writes "Forbes reported on Monday that The President of Russia's Council on Civil Society and Human Rights very briefly and supposedly by accident posted the actual results of the Crimean secession vote. According to the blog post, which has since been taken down, only 30% of Crimeans participated in the vote instead of the 83% participation officially advertised by Russia, and of that 30% only half voted for secession, which means that 15% of all Crimeans voted for secession rather than the 82% officially reported by Russia. There is no way for this claim to be verified as no foreign observers were allowed during the voting process. The vote is reportedly being conducted again during the 'May 11 referendum on the status of the so-called People's Republic of Donetsk.'" We've had a lot of discussion over the years about election methods and transparency; it would be interesting to hear from Ukranian readers in particular on this topic.

Comments

well

[Keruo]

Crimea=Florida
But who's counting..

Re:well

[SensitiveMale]

Gore lost on every recount. Get over it.

Yes, every single one. Don't forget that Gore tried to goose the results by having only Dem heavy counties recounted rather than the entire state.

One last thing that just about no one knows about. All of the major news outlets proclaimed Florida to Gore before voting was finished in Florida. Florida resides in two time zones and the northwest "handle" of Florida is heavily Republican. Many voters left lines while voting was open once Florida was called for Gore. IF that hadn't have happened, the recount wouldn't have been close at all.

Re:well

[n1ywb]

One last thing that just about no one knows about. All of the major news outlets proclaimed Florida to Gore before voting was finished in Florida. Florida resides in two time zones and the northwest "handle" of Florida is heavily Republican. Many voters left lines while voting was open once Florida was called for Gore. IF that hadn't have happened, the recount wouldn't have been close at all.

If that's really true, well, those folks who walked out have nobody to blame but themselves.

Re:well

[scubamage]

Russia is seeing a country that is essentially on the brink of civil war right next to its borders. On top of that, that country happens to control many of the major resource pipelines into and out of Russia. They have a vested interest in keeping Ukraine stable. Do you expect that the US would do any differently if Juarez or Tijuana truly became a Narco-stronghold? Don't rush so quickly to judge. The media on both sides of the pond spins the story to make their respective side look good.

Re:well

[ericloewe]

[Citation Needed]

Re:well

[PortHaven]

Mexico is a country on our border that's been near at civil war and a drug and crime mecca. So um, yes...we haven't invaded Mexico....(not sure on vice-versa)

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[Talderas]

Pershing's Punitive Expedition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...

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[MightyMartian]

If the actual poll results are true, it suggest Ukraine is not that divided fundamentally at all, and that a small group of pro-Russian agitators lead by Russian military personnel out of uniform are creating this civil war.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, every single one

Except for the statewide recount carried out as a partnership with several news agencies after the SCOTUS terminated the official recount efforts. That one came out with Gore on top, and had Gore requested a statewide recount rather than recounting in only a few counties he probably would have won both numerically and by preventing the court challenge against his weird recounting efforts.

But you knew that, didn't you, liar troll?

Re:well

[smooth wombat]

They have a vested interest in keeping Ukraine stable.

So why are Russian troops and Russian-trained operatives fomenting the unrest we're seeing? Don't you think Russia would want Ukraine to avoid what's going on? Why lie about ethnic Russians supposedly being targeted when they could provide not a single shred of evidence to show this was happening?

Russia started this because the people of Ukraine got fed up being used as a pawn by Russia and all the corruption their former leader was doing. That is why they opened up his former residence to show where the Ukrainian people's money was really going instead of for roads, electricity, etc.

Russia is the one who is causing the problem and the lies of the Crimean vote show the reality of the situation. Putin has become a modern day Stalin, though without the gulags. From dictatorial control of the media, the false imprisonment of political rivals and those who oppose his authoritarian rule, manipulating vote counts and election qualifications, goon squads to rough up and kill opponents, he has taken Stalin's playbook and updated it for the modern era.

Re:well

[scubamage]

Not so fast. We have aided Mexico militarily by sending special forces for training, and also bringing Mexican troops to the US for training. Russia itself has not invaded Ukraine. Russian loyalists however have occupied several government buildings/regions because they're not a fan of the Pro-NATO, Pro-West stance taken by the Kieven government. I'm not going to say Russia is entirely innocent here, after all there were supposedly photos of Russian special forces training Eastern Ukrainians, but that behavior is nearly the same as what the US has done with Mexico in the drug war. We picked the side we liked and benefitted us the most, we gave them equipment and training, and told the other side that if they spill over our borders we will christen them with hellfire missiles.

Re:well

[Obfuscant]

Yes, every single one. Don't forget that Gore tried to goose the results by having only Dem heavy counties recounted rather than the entire state.

And his people were in court trying to get already counted Republican heavy areas thrown out. They challenged the absentees from the military because many military votes went via APO/FPO and lacked postmarks, and in one county they challenged all the Republican absentees because the Republican precinct captain was smart enough to write the voter's id number on the absentee request and the Democrat wasn't.

Many voters left lines while voting was open once Florida was called for Gore. IF that hadn't have happened, the recount wouldn't have been close at all.

That, too. That's why there should be NO reporting of results until ALL the ballots have been cast. If that means that east coast voters don't know who won until after Hawaii's polls close, that's just too damn bad.

Re:well

[supton]

That narrative is convincing only under duress of propaganda and threat of violence against any pro-unity Ukranians. Russia is effectively fascist; Yanukovych was effectively fascist. AFAICT, the Maidan protests were about severe discontent with Yanukovych's palatial corruption at scales not seen in most places in modern Europe, not just trade alignments -- the small number of right wing extremists that were anti-Yanukovych don't take away from the fact that -- according to most objective observers, journalists, etc -- the vast majority of the voices coming from Kyiv were effectively anti-corruption liberals, not right-wing extremists.

Yet the separatists are playing Wagner, detaining journalists, enacting violence against peaceful pro-unity rallies -- and at the same time talking about defeating fascists, the irony is either lost on them or their intended audience.

Re:well

[Obfuscant]

As I recall, the Bush camp wanted one recount method, and the Gore camp wanted a different one, and under the rules they each proposed, the other side would have won.

You recall wrong. Bush wanted the recount that was already completed to stand, which would allow the Secretary of State to certify the result in time for the Electoral College, and Gore wanted another recount that would have pushed the result back so Florida's votes wouldn't have counted at all, no matter who won another recount. That's what most people missed. If the electors cannot vote when the Electoral College meets, it doesn't matter who won the state, the votes don't matter. Gore knew that, and he knew he'd win if Florida's electors couldn't vote.

That's what the Supreme Court case was about -- whether the Florida legislature had the authority to define the election process or the courts could change it. The US and Florida constitutions both gave the legislature the responsibility, and the legislature had a process in place for counting and recounting and certifying the results. Gore wanted that changed after the polls had closed, just like he got the counting process changed to include "dimpled chads" in a system that said "poke a hole in a piece of paper" and his voters couldn't manage to do that simple task. A "poke a hole" system that both Republican AND Democrat election officials had approved prior to the actual election.

Re:well

[umghhh]

how big is this if?

Quite frankly with the amount of propganda that is being thrown at us all the time, it looks to me that no conclusion is possible. Some of the supporters of 'democracy' and Ukrainian unity are difficult to distinguish from racists and thugs. Neither current nor previous Ukrainian gov look much like they understood what human rights are either. The fact is also that the corrupt chieftain voted into presidential office last time and ovethrown by pro-western groups is the situation that happened before and the pro-western (if one can call them that) groups are apparently not less corrupt that the others - to me it looks like Ukraine is hoplessly devided, poor and unstable country with long and difficult way to stability and prosperity.

Re:well

[stoploss]

That's why there should be NO reporting of results until ALL the ballots have been cast. If that means that east coast voters don't know who won until after Hawaii's polls close, that's just too damn bad.

I concur in theory. However, in practice, how would that work? The twatterblagoversetubes would have some sort of "wisdom of the crowd" tweetpost exit-poll-like mashup heatmap created by some anonymous person that everyone would link to and this would be even less statistically accurate/more subject to manipulation than the media's exit poll results.

Re:well

[jklovanc]

Ukrainian new unelected leadership is more like Hitler.

First all the current leaders were elected to Parliament. The only "unelected" part is the post of acting President. That was done when the previous president abandoned his post and fled. Second the main political party is Batkivshchyna which looks like a pretty progressive party. Show me how they compare to Hitler in what they have actually done. If you mean the few radical outliers the same thing could be said for the Republican Party.

Aggressively moved right away to abolish equal rights for Russian and Russian-speaking population who make up almost half the country.

You might want to look at the demographics of the Ukraine. The Russian speaking percentage is 30%. The Ukrainian speaking percentage is 67%. So the less than 1/3 Russian speaking portion is nowhere near half. Take a look at this map. Most of the Ukraine is primarily Ukrainian speakers. Notice how much of the Russian speaking population is concentrated in the Crimea. I agree that should have been a referendum in the Crimea but it was done improperly under vary shady circumstances. Democracy does not work very well during political upheaval. The only thing close to a rights issue was a bill to make Ukrainian the only official language. The bill was passed by the parliament but vetoed by the President. It is not in effect. Do you have any other examples?

Russia has no choice but to get involved.

There are other way to "get involved" than sending in special forces, supplying arms to insurgents, holding large military exercises on the borders and threatening invasion. Those are the tactics of an uncivilized bully. Russia won't even admit that the Holodomor happened.

Re:well

[Anonymous Coward]

Gore lost on every recount. Get over it.

Yes, every single one. Don't forget that Gore tried to goose the results by having only Dem heavy counties recounted rather than the entire state.

One last thing that just about no one knows about. All of the major news outlets proclaimed Florida to Gore before voting was finished in Florida. Florida resides in two time zones and the northwest "handle" of Florida is heavily Republican. Many voters left lines while voting was open once Florida was called for Gore. IF that hadn't have happened, the recount wouldn't have been close at all.

Oh come off it. Florida actually had laws at the time governing recounts and how they should be done. Gore requested a recount according to those laws--there was no provision for a statewide recount. So he requested a recount where there were irregularities (i.e. huge discrepancies between exit polling and actual voting results). He did not request a recount where there were no irregularities, because there was no legal or rational basis for him to do such a thing.

Florida was called for Gore because the exit polling revealed that even if every one of the panhandle voters cast their ballot for Bush, Gore still would have won. Yeah, those panhandle voters may have been discouraged, just like Hawaii voters are discouraged every four years when their votes actually don't make a difference in who wins. Calling elections before all votes are cast is done because it CAN be done, accurately, once a certain percentage of the vote is known.

But it turned out, the exit polls were way off--way off to a degree that exit polls haven't been off by in recent memory. Now, if you're partisan, you can say that's because either there was a problem with the exit polling, or because there was a problem with the voting, depending on your bias. But you cannot say that Gore tried to goose the results, or that the media reporting favored Gore. Not with a straight face, anyway, you can't.

Re:well

[mooingyak]

Did a little more digging, I was halfway right. The meat of it was that the recount methodology that Gore requested was actually one of the least beneficial scenarios for his side.

Re:well

[smooth wombat]

You do realize stopping the flow of gas to Europe would hurt Europe more than it would Russia, don't you? That is why there are only economic sanctions going on and not the stopping of gas purchases because Europe needs that gas. And Russia knows this.

The supply lines run from Russia to the west, not vice versa.

Re:well

[Rich0]

If the actual poll results are true, it suggest Ukraine is not that divided fundamentally at all, and that a small group of pro-Russian agitators lead by Russian military personnel out of uniform are creating this civil war.

And if actual poll results are true, it would make them like a lot of US elections, where most people sit it out and the fringes determine how the country will be run.

If this were just about electing a mayor I'd agree. However, the referendum was controversial and many boycotted it.

If the local KKK had a referendum on whether black people should be placed in concentration camps or just shot on sight, and only 0.001% of the population turned out, would the conclusion be that most people don't care about black people being shot on sight?

Re:well

[rahvin112]

Russian intelligence operatives along with Spetnaz Russian special forces out of uniform are occupying Ukrainian government offices. They are doing so with the assistance of several prominent Ukrainian oligarchs that backed and supported Yankovitch. It's been estimated that fewer than 15% of the "protestors" are actually even Ukrainian and many of those that are Ukrainian are being supported (and paid) by those oligarchs.

When US special forces out of uniform but still acting at the direction of the US government are seizing Mexican government offices by force let me know.

Re:well

[MightyMartian]

Is this some sort of justification for a fake referendum overseen by Russia? The US, all in all, doesn't have elections that are that problematic or fixed.

Re:well

[CanHasDIY]

You do realize stopping the flow of gas to Europe would hurt Europe more than it would Russia, don't you? That is why there are only economic sanctions going on and not the stopping of gas purchases because Europe needs that gas. And Russia knows this.

Indeed; they also know that the only way to ensure that Russia sells their oil to Europe would be to start a land war in Asia, and as we all should well know, you never want to be involved in a land war in Asia.

Re:well

[nitehawk214]

Crimea=Florida

But who's counting..

Russia can have Florida.

Re:well

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Gore lost on every recount. Get over it.

It depended on the rules you used for what counted as a punched hanging chad and so on. By two of the many rule variations, Gore won.

Unfortunately, you must use the rules in place before the vote for jist such a reason -- to prevent changing the result by changing the rules.

Gore should have won, but because of the Buchanan confusion in that one county, which would habe statistically given him about 18,000 more votes. Sadly you can't reassign votes either for even more obvious reasons.

No, the vote was fubar. No way around it but to revote and even that has ethical difficulties of giving the loser a second chance.

Re:well

[almitydave]

Except for the statewide recount carried out as a partnership with several news agencies after the SCOTUS terminated the official recount efforts. That one came out with Gore on top

Thanks for the link - I remember when the study came out but had lost track of the details. The wiki article indicates that Gore would have won only if the most generous standards for determining voter intent (e.g. dimpled chad, slight mark on optical ballots, etc.) were consistently applied in a statewide recount. So yes, there is a scenario in which Gore "might have won", but the wiki article also mentions some important caveats that make it impossible to say with certainty what the "correct" result of counting every ballot would have been.

liar troll

That's a bit excessive, as what he said is technically correct - Gore lost every official recount, and the study you link to indicates he would also have lost every recount effort he was asking for in court.

Re:well

[Duhavid]

A, about 100 years ago. ( and that is the first thing I thought of when he said "never invaded" )
B, Mexico's borders and leadership do not appear greatly influenced by these events.
        I am not getting a great feeling that this will be so for Ukraine.

Re:well

[interkin3tic]

Putin has become a modern day Stalin, though without the gulags.

Stalin didn't start off with the Gulags though. Putin still has time to start full on purging Russia of some evil conspiracy. Possibly a homosexual conspiracy.

Re:well

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

Quite honestly, I don't think they are true.
I was there around 18 months ago and the place had a very Russian (rather than Ukranian) feel to it. It is an accident of recent history that the Crimea ended up in the Ukraine at all, it was also taken for granted before the vote that there was a large majority for secession. That majority had not been evident in the Eastern regions as of a week or so ago, what effect the Ukranian Army marching in is going to have on public opinion - I would not want to hazard a guess. The secessionists there were using all means up to and including murder of public figures to intimidate the locals, but an army fighting their way in could also cause antagonism.

Western perception is of the Ukraine is that part of the country orientates itself westwards and part towards the north (Russia). It is a simplification but wtf. The problem is that whoever was in power, they lined their own pockets. When the last west-leaning government was voted out but still in power, they proclaimed Stepan Bandera a Hero of the Ukraine. Bandera was a figure who (to a certain extent) cooperated with the Nazis against the Soviets and Russians, and whose followers "ethnic cleansed" around 70 000 Poles - mostly women and children - around 1943. He himself was interned at the time because the Nazis considered Ukrainians to be only slightly less sub-human than they saw the Russians. Bandera's people had nothing agaist Ukrainian Jews.
Still, those who distrust "western leaning" politicians have been provided with good reasons.

Re:well

[Kierthos]

The accord which removed all of the nukes from Ukraine was a brokered deal. In return, Russia agreed not to mess with the territorial integrity of Ukraine. (We can see how well that worked.) But considering that leaving the nukes in Ukraine would have only made it a major problem for Ukraine, Russia, NATO, etc., it was a good call to make at the time.

All you had to do was trust that Russia would abide by the terms of the accord, which, to be honest, they did, for 18 years.

Re:well

[Culture20]

If this were just about electing a mayor I'd agree. However, the referendum was controversial and many boycotted it.

If the local KKK had a referendum on whether black people should be placed in concentration camps or just shot on sight, and only 0.001% of the population turned out, would the conclusion be that most people don't care about black people being shot on sight?

That depends on whether the local KKK had thugs brandishing weapons at the polling places. If there was no reason to fear a backlash, then yeah, the people didn't care one way or another. If there were masked men with semi or full-auto rifles who refused to identify themselves taking over government buildings and making roadblocks to restrict travel, I could see why low turn-out would mean nothing other than people were afraid to vote.

Re:well

[tomkost]

If anyone wanted to know how Crimean's felt about joining Russian Federation, they only had to google it. This poll from May 2013 shows the results and in fact, the percetnage of people supporting joining the Russian Federation has gone down since 2011 despite rough political and economic turns since then. Since the poll was done without the presence of occupying forces, I'm quite sure it's more valid. http://www.iri.org/sites/defau...

Re:well

[Darinbob]

Most US elections are legitimate elections though; the time of the election is known months (or years) in advance, it is set up and administered by proper government officials and based upon a long legal tradition, and there is no fear of being harmed by showing up to vote. The Crimean elections had no legitimacy about them in any form; they were called for by a self-appointed government and held at a time when there were armed thugs in balaclavas roaming the streets.

Re:well

[Darinbob]

The protests against Yanukovych were across the board. No one liked him essentially. But Russia continually points to Maidan protests and the current Kiev government as being dominated by neo nazis, which is absurd. What is ironic though is that the there are plenty of pictures of fascist like behavior occuring in eastern Ukraine from the pro-Russian militants.

Re:well

[J. J. Ramsey]

Actually, I think of the Russian occupation of Crimea as more analogous to the German occupation of the Sudetenland. The pretext for Germany occupying the Sudetenland was the presence of the ethnic Germans there, while for Russia, the pretext was the presence of ethnic Russians.

Re:well

[r1348]

Your lack of sources disturbs me.

Re:well

[AmiMoJo]

That's a big "if". Can't trust Russia, can't trust US media, can't trust random blogs and internet posts.

Re:well

[shutdown -p now]

They already do - didn't you see "Putin for President"? Note the second to last line.

Re:well

[shutdown -p now]

You might want to look at the demographics [wikipedia.org] of the Ukraine. The Russian speaking percentage is 30%. The Ukrainian speaking percentage is 67%. So the less than 1/3 Russian speaking portion is nowhere near half.

The thing in Ukraine is that most people there are actually bilingual, so what numbers you get depends on what questions you ask. If the question is "what language do you consider native", you'll get numbers like the ones that you've quoted. If you instead ask "what language do you speak at home", then around 45% say that they use Russian (so a bunch of people consider Ukrainian native, but use Russian day-to-day, including private conversations). If you ask "what language do you speak most of the time" (i.e. including work, official communication, and other communication outside of home), then Russian becomes dominant nationally, and in most regions except for the western ones.

So it's technically true that "most of Ukraine is Ukrainian speakers". It is also true, at the same time, that most of Ukraine is Russian speakers :) the country is often compared to Canada with its language issue, but the situation in Ukraine is radically different from that in Canada because there are no clear geographic borders defining language use, and language affiliation only weakly correlates with national self-identification and other political questions (case in point: the majority of people on Maidan spoke Russian).

. The only thing close to a rights issue was a bill to make Ukrainian the only official language.

Not quite. That thing that you speak of was an attempt to repeal a law, enacted under Yanukovich, that created a special category called "regional languages", with recognized official status on the territories of regions where their speakers constituted a minority above a certain threshold (it was still up to the regions to take up that opportunity or not) - it did not say anything about the official national/state language, however. It was clearly aimed at Russian, but in practice it was also used by e.g. Hungarian speakers in Transcarpathia. That said, it's a poorly written law because it has many vague definitions, and because it doesn't define the lowest level of territorial division on which it applies - so there were cases of e.g. individual villages declaring their own regional language (examples included Russian, Hungarian, Roma, Bulgarian, Tatar etc) - while the larger entity of which they are a part of did not do so. Needless to say, at some point it makes quite a mess, administratively speaking.

So the idea was to repeal that law, and then enact a new law on languages. However, the president vetoed the repeal because it was seen as politically inappropriate at the time (as many russophones took the repeal as an assault on their language rights).

Re:well

[shutdown -p now]

I like the new President, I don't like how he came to power. Yanokovych was a terrible leader, but the last election he won seemed to be fair.

There's one catch here. The last election that Yanukovich won, he won under the 2004 Constitution, which defined a relatively weak presidential position alongside a strong parliament and prime minister (e.g. under pre-2004 constitution, president appointed ministers; after 2004, it was the parliament). However, shortly after being elected, Yanukovich appealed to the Constitutional Court to declare the 2004 constitutional amendments invalid, which the court did (though several judges resigned in protest, citing government pressure). A lot of people saw that as a de facto coup, since the guy basically claimed a mandate that he was not elected upon.

Re:well

[MightyMartian]

A self appointed government, mind you, that was little more than a Russian facade. Even where foreign powers like NATO have gone in and essentially forced a referendum, like Kosovo and Iraq, there were international observers and general agreement that, whatever you thought of the legitimacy of the events leading up to those points, the elections themselves were free and fair.

Nothing like that exists for Crimea. It was a scam referendum with a preordained conclusion.

Again?

[jbmartin6]

Given how many lies and half-truths have been circulated by the press about this, I am not sure I believe this at all.

Re:Again?

[clarkkent09]

It is, since it is well known that Crimea is heavily pro Russian. If you know anything about Crimea you would find it impossible to believe that they would vote to stay with Ukraine rather than join Russia or even that the result would be close like TFA claims.

Re:Again?

[Nexus7]

Most people in that region identify with Russia. They were looking at an EU austerity regime vs free money from Russia.

Yeah, I find the original results easier to believe.

Re:Again?

[Anonymous Coward]

The results of Crimea is not hard to believe. They had similar referendum with just as much support for Russia in the past. They voted in overwhelming majority to support greater autonomy and dual citizenship with Russia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_referendum,_1994

Note the date: 1994. No imaginary Russian troops to allegedly pressure Crimeans.

Obama ain't fooling anyone with his propaganda. Sorry.

Re:Again?

[MightyMartian]

How could the West have fiddled the Crimean referendum when the Russians controlled the territory, ran the polls and had a willing and colluding agent in the government of Crimea?

Re:Again?

[Vicarius]

Cause it's large Tartar population...

Large compared to what? To population of Tatars in Boston or New York? They are a minority in Crimea.

... and 25% Ukrainian population wouldn't oppose...

Not all ethnic Ukrainians are pro-Ukraine.

...Heck, how many Russians oppose Putin in Russia...

Only the vocal minority in the bigger cities. Most of Russia, which is mostly rural, supports him. Those who like Putin, just go about their lives instead of wasting time campaigning against him.

... Just can get the guy unelected though.

Can't unelect a democratically elected president when most of the country actually likes him.

Re:Again?

[Katatsumuri]

First, any public poll with close to 90% outcome should be suspect.

There are 10% Crimean Tatar and 25% Ukrainian nationals in the Crimea, that makes Putin's figures unbelievable.

And even people who identify with Russia do not necessarily all want to actually join it under Putin's regime.

So, even though there are no proofs for this story and you are right to doubt it, too, you should doubt the official results more.

Also, regardless of any poll results, the poll was illegal under Ukrainian law, and you cannot legally come to another country, conduct a regional poll, and take a part of the territory.

Re:Again?

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

First, any public poll with close to 90% outcome should be suspect.

There are 10% Crimean Tatar and 25% Ukrainian nationals in the Crimea, that makes Putin's figures unbelievable.

And even people who identify with Russia do not necessarily all want to actually join it under Putin's regime.

This is quite right. I'm an American and I've spent a grand total of several months in Ukraine in the first half of the decade of the 2000s. I can speak Russian well. I was by pure luck, not by plan, on the ground in Ukraine while the Orange Revolution of 2004 was happening and I saw if first hand. What was just amazing at the time is how insanely bad the Russians and their Ukrainian lackeys are at cheating in elections. In 2004 some of the oblasts (this is something like a state or region) reported vote totals approaching 100% for the entire state for Yanukovich. I had no doubt that Yanukovich easily won his home oblast, but the 98% in favor of him reported in the first (later thrown out) voting was just absurd. Other regions came out with equally absurd totals, such as Odessa with something like 90%. I believe that Yanukovich truly won every oblast he was said to have won in the original 2004 elections, but none of them were won with the vote totals reported. The Russians and their Ukrainian lackeys like to report huge super majorities in their favor and no sane person believes the vote totals reported.

Re:Again?

[Strange Quark Star]

From what I heard from my relatives in Simferopol, even the Crimean Tatars lined up to vote "for Putin" and now that Russian passports are starting to be issued the Tatars are the first in line to get them. It's quite telling that even most of the Tatars choose Russia as the lesser evil.

And from what I can tell by living the first part of my life there and regularly visiting my friends and relatives, the general populace is really fed up with the Ukrainian government and, if old enough, reminisce about and miss the Soviet days, which now translates to longing for reunion with Russia.

It is really bizarre to us (ethnic Russians from/living in Simferopol, Crimea) how thoroughly the western media misses the fact that most Crimeans really want to join Russia or at least part from Ukraine.

Re:Again?

[superwiz]

From what I read, the Russian propaganda machine has the entire country convinced that Ukraine has inundated the entire world with its propaganda. The only country impervious to Ukraine's influence are Russia, North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba. Yeah, Soviet Union lived by propaganda. They know what they are doing. Arguing with Russians is pointless at the moment. They don't actually know that there blanket censorship going on. They just shout down any voices of reason and spread FUD. The Soviet Propaganda is the genuine article. It's not some wanna-be propaganda. They actually ran a country based on it. Everything else, including every marketing campaign you've ever seen, is just a poor imitation.

Re:Again?

[shutdown -p now]

Most ethnic Ukrainians are bilingual, actually. And in Crimea in particular, 77% consider Russian their native language (it's in the same Wikipedia article you've linked to) - so obviously quite a few people who identify as ethnic Ukrainians do so.

Understand that ethnicity has practically nothing to do with one's political position in this conflict, and language is only a weak correlation (if you watch the videos, both pro-Russian and anti-Russian protesters mostly speak Russian outside of formal occasions). It's all about cultural self-identification - Soviet/Orthodox Empire (some people manage to combine both even!) versus independent westernized Ukraine.

come on, this is RUSSIA

[alen]

Edward Snowden fled there to escape US tyranny

Re:come on, this is RUSSIA

[Bacon Bits]

Sometimes the only person who stands up to a bully is another bully.

Re:come on, this is RUSSIA

[swb]

The problem is, as an outsider, you're on the hook for protection money forever. You've got no leverage and they will just bleed you dry and then dispose of you.

As an insider, well, look what happens with top guys in DPRK when they fall out of favor -- they get hauled out of bed, shoved into a car and get shot someplace. And I don't think it's so easy to just be a low-profile yes-man, either. You don't get to be in the leadership or stay there without playing the game, which means angling for the spot above you while somebody angles for your spot.

Re:come on, this is RUSSIA

[umghhh]

This I am afraid describes the situation acurately.

I was born in one of the eastern block countries and every time I look in the media these days a very uneasy feeling overwhelms me - all the strores are somehow 'almost' true but together they do not convince. The 'good' guys in Kiev are not people I would like to socialize with or have in government of the country I live in. As much as I am sorry for the people in Ukraine that have to suffer because of this I do not see any side I can honestly and with ease of mind support. Which to me means not meddle with Ukrainian affairs and send enforcements to Baltic states just to be on the safe side. But as it is usually the case we will be lucky if the only cost of this for us will be more our tax money transferred trough Ukraine to oligarchs all over the place.

In-window popup autoplaying video ads with sound?

[Dachannien]

Seriously, DICE? I'm sitting here looking at the first few comments, hoping for a little clarity and maybe even some insightful discussion - you know, Slashdot style - when the window contents scroll up and a video ad, with sound, starts playing.

I am done with this piece of shit website. How do I delete my account?

History lesson

[DaveAtFraud]

“Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.”

  Joseph Stalin

Sounds like Putin has studied history.

Misleading

[WiglyWorm]

The vote had 30% turnout. ~50% voted to be annexed. Thus 15% of the population voted yes, but ~50% of the VOTE was for annexation. Of course, going to go vote no while the russians are sitting around in your country with guns and amassed on the border couldn't be an easy decision.

Re:Misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

The question of the referendum was posed as:
[ ] Do you support Crimea joining Russian Federation?
[ ] Do you support Crimea returning to its 1992 constitution and being part of Ukraine?
Exactly one box must have been ticked for the ballot to be considered valid. Under the 1992 constitution Crimea was almost an independent state, with its own diplomatic relations etc, and it would have the power to secede from Ukraine anyway. So there was no option for status quo, no option to vote "no" at all, the only way to express such opinion was to boycott the referendum.

It's as though the referendum was "Mind if Crimea joins Russia?" -- "OK" / "No, I don't mind".

Re:Misleading

[serviscope_minor]

but ~50% of the VOTE was for annexation.

Yeah, but never mind that there was no option to stay in the Ukraine like a significant fraction of the population voted. The entire thing was rotten end to end.

Re:Misleading

[guacamole]

You are wrong. There was an option to stay in Ukraine. Check your facts. Moreover, the Forbes article is garbage. The guy was posing hysterical anti-Russian garbage for months. The report said that _probably_ 30-50% of voters voted, with 50-60% voting pro-Russian. So why does the guy lowball his numbers? Forbes is the last place you should consult for the truth in international politics, by the way. It's a typical conservative, neo-con mouthpiece.

Observers

[evilviper]

OSCE observers were invited, but the organization declined. Somewhere around 100 international observers from other organizations were present. They might have mostly been Russian schills, but they were there.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Observers

[Katatsumuri]

Yes, OSCE refused to take any part in this circus, because the poll was illegal under Ukrainian law and was conducted under "protection" of Russian armed forces posing as local militia.

The propaganda wars begin

[joe_frisch]

There really is no way to know what is real and what isn't with propaganda machines going full out on both sides.

No international observers?

[Richard_at_work]

You should tell the 30 strong team from Poland, Austria, France, Germany, Belgium, Bulgaria, Hungary, Greece, Italy and Latvia that they weren't there...

No tensions in Ukraine’s autonomous republic of Crimea were reported by the team of international observers Saturday, as they started monitoring polling stations and readying for the crucial vote on the peninsula’s independence.

Thirty observers, who come from 10 European nations, have arrived in Crimea at the invitation of the republic's election commission and have already started their work, Mateusz Piskorski, the director of the European Geopolitical Analysis Centre and the mission coordinator, said.

“At the moment we are starting to monitor the preparation of polling stations. In general, the situation is very calm, there is no tension,” he told Interfax news agency. “Everyone hopes there will be no provocations."

Members of the mission come from Poland, Austria, France, Germany, Belgium, Bulgaria, Hungary, Greece, Italy and Latvia. Representing the European Democracy and Election Monitoring Institute (Brussels), they are deputies from the European parliament, members of national parliaments of their native countries, as well as leading European international law experts and famous human rights activists.

http://rt.com/news/crimea-refe...

Re:No international observers?

[wooppp]

Except that from http://www.theguardian.com/wor... ------- No major international organisations are monitoring the vote, but a group of observers from 23 countries – a mixture of anti-western ideologues and European far-right politicians – have arrived of their own accord and gave a press conference in Simferopol on Saturday evening. ------- I ain't sure whether some readers understand the implication of the Ukraine issue now, of which Putin is using the same strategy as in the Russo-Georgian War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_war) that ultimately led to ethnic cleansing. There will be lots of blood.

Re:No international observers?

[Moskit]

Mr Piskorski has often commented that "Ukraine is a fallen country". He appeared on Russia Today tv station as "western expert" claiming Maidan was inspired by Western countries, and repeating Putin rhetorics.

He was accused of being Russian agent since 2007. He is collaborating with CIS-EMO, who go to "observe" various elections in Russia, and produce reports positive for Russia.

All in all - those observers were likely just used by Russians to validate "elections".

Re:Same as other countries

[sharknado]

Why bother voting at all?

Because we have to maintain the illusion of a democracy, that's why.

Who stands to gain?

[Anonymous Coward]

The source, a blog posting, is not at all credible and the fact that its even newsworthy indicates it is being pushed by propaganda. Who stands to gain?

According to what I have read (sorry i didn't bookmark the source) and in my conversations with people from the area, it is very understandable that the people of Crimea would have voted to join Russia. We get the NATO side of the propaganda over here.

Re:In-window popup autoplaying video ads with soun

[scubamage]

Why do you need an ad-blocker on slashdot? If you have great karma from being a good member of the community they give you the option to disable all advertising. Just post constructively and no adblocker is necessary.

All about the Eurasian Union

[bigpat]

There is a blatant information war going on on both sides of this.

Here is basically what is going on:

1. 1) US/EU has been actively trying to keep Russia from forming an Eurasian Union with some of the members of the former Soviet Union. (most probably because the people running US/EU foreign policy grew up with the Soviet Union and are afraid of repeating the cold war)
2. 2) Russia pressured/bribed Ukraine to move towards the Russia side after a brief foray towards the EU.
3. 3) The EU/US fomented an overthrow of the government in Ukraine probably facilitated by covert operations in order to prevent the Eurasian Union from coming together with Ukraine as its economic crossroad to Europe.
4. 4) Russia tried to salvage something out of this collapse of the pro-Russian government by grabbing Crimea with its majority Russian population.
5. 5) Russia is now fomenting separatists in Eastern Ukraine using the same tactics the CIA used in Kiev and the US/EU doesn't like it.

....

Next) Either Russia invades and annexes Eastern Ukraine following the Crimea model or they simply foment separatism which either succeeds in splitting the country or causes a bloody crackdown by Kiev which further de-legitimizes that interim government.

- Probably China is cheer leading this US/EU/Russia split on because if the EU and Russia are forced further apart, then it forces resource rich Russia towards China which needs all the wood/oil/natural gas/mining that Russia has to offer to sustain its manufacturing economy and China doesn't want a strong Eurasian Union coming together either. This has already started with announcements of greater cooperation with China.

I think the bitter irony in all this is that the foreign policy leaders in the West that are so afraid of repeating the Cold War are precipitating something like it now because of that fear. Russia has every right to be concerned that it is stuck between a growing EU and China and that it needs to build up its own alliance in the middle. Their historical lesson is that a Europe united under Germany is a threat. It seems to me that the EU and US are being very shortsighted to have undercut Putin so blatantly and overtly in Ukraine. The US and EU needs a strong Russia and something like a Eurasian Alliance to counterbalance China to the East. If anything the EU should have invited Russia to join it to form an even greater Union that would be a direct counterbalance to China instead of just leaving Russia as a buffer state.

Re:All about the Eurasian Union

[ericloewe]

3) Deserves a massive [Citation Needed] sticker. The only covert operations of which there is any proof is the massive Russian involvement.

Re:All about the Eurasian Union

[gman003]

There is a blatant information war going on on both sides of this.

Here is basically what is going on:

1. 1) US/EU has been actively trying to keep Russia from forming an Eurasian Union with some of the members of the former Soviet Union. (most probably because the people running US/EU foreign policy grew up with the Soviet Union and are afraid of repeating the cold war)
2. 2) Russia pressured/bribed Ukraine to move towards the Russia side after a brief foray towards the EU.

With you so far.

1. 3) The EU/US fomented an overthrow of the government in Ukraine probably facilitated by covert operations in order to prevent the Eurasian Union from coming together with Ukraine as its economic crossroad to Europe.

I have seen little evidence of US/EU covert operations in the revolution, and I've been following it closely. There was definitely propaganda support, maybe political pressure, perhaps even covert advisors trying to make sure that the revolution was successful, but it was by and large a Ukrainian revolution.

The thrust of the revolution was forcing out a government that was blatantly corrupt and increasingly dictatorial, not to join up with the EU. While I usually frown on getting involved in other country's problems, I don't think I could get too upset about lending a hand to a revolution that was forcing out such a government, particularly when the support is only aiding a revolution that would have happened anyways, not forcing a revolution that the people did not really want

1. 4) Russia tried to salvage something out of this collapse of the pro-Russian government by grabbing Crimea with its majority Russian population.

Crimea is "majority Russian" only because Stalin forced out the native Tatars. And while there was a separatist movement (nonviolent) before the revolution, it was a secessionist movement, not a Russian one. There was no way they got the numbers they claimed legitimately.

1. 5) Russia is now fomenting separatists in Eastern Ukraine using the same tactics the CIA used in Kiev and the US/EU doesn't like it.

Russia's tactics are different. Even if you assume CIA involvement in the revolution, they let the actual people perform the revolution - which means a good number of people had to be ready to fight for it.

Russia is sending in their own military. They are the ones fighting this counter-revolution - not the people they claim to be helping. This is by and large a Russian military intervention.

The western revolution was fought with molotov cocktails by students and retired veterans. The eastern revolution is being fought by armed and trained soldiers, following radio orders from Moscow. It's impossible to claim they're the same tactics, which means it is completely valid to treat them differently.

The CIA isn't mad that Russia is using the same tactics - they're mad because Russia is unable to find enough people to actually fight this war in Ukraine, so they're just sending in soldiers and pretending it's a popular rebellion.

....

Next) Either Russia invades and annexes Eastern Ukraine following the Crimea model or they simply foment separatism which either succeeds in splitting the country or causes a bloody crackdown by Kiev which further de-legitimizes that interim government.

- Probably China is cheer leading this US/EU/Russia split on because if the EU and Russia are forced further apart, then it forces resource rich Russia towards China which needs all the wood/oil/natural gas/mining that Russia has to offer to sustain its manufacturing economy and China doesn't want a strong Eurasian Union coming together either. This has already started with announcements of greater cooperation with China.

I think the bitter irony in all this is that the foreign policy leaders in the West that are so afra

Re:All about the Eurasian Union

[jd.schmidt]

Sorry to double post but I have to add, the very fact the countries feel they have to choose sides tells you about their relationship with Russia. If they were confident they could be left alone and not get invaded on a pretext, they could have great trade ties with Europe AND Russia, which probably IS what they would really prefer. Russia's ham fisted handling of this crisis is digging their own grave.

Re:All about the Eurasian Union

[bigpat]

The only US involvement was in the legitimization of the leader of the new government, which was the subject of the leaked wiretap by the FSB, where the American Ambassador says "f* the EU".

Except that was well before there was a new government... So a US "diplomat" trying to help organize a new government in Kiev while the old one is still in power is actually pretty clear evidence of US government involvement.

Re:All about the Eurasian Union

[swb]

I think China and Russia are much more conflicted with each other than you describe. They nearly went to war over some river island in 1969.

While China certainly has a standing policy of accepting anything that goes on inside a country as its "internal affairs", that policy is a little sketchier when it comes to basically annexing territory of another sovereign state. It's not just internal affairs when the guy next door decides he wants to redraw your own Western boundary.

Russia may be willing to extend its raw material export economy to the Chinese, I think the Russians are more than a little anxious about the economic power and military ambitions that economic power can buy of its neighbor to the east.

The Chinese spent a long time somewhat under the shadow of the USSR and now that they are in a lot of respects seen as the #2 power in the world (in terms of gross military size plus economic clout at least), they are probably unwilling to cede much if anything to the Kremlin, especially on the topic of where the border should be and what's "historic Russian territory".

I'm sure the Chinese like to see Obama's fecklessness in the face of Putin's Ukrainian policy, anything that preoccupies Uncle Sam is great sport for Xi Jinping, but he cares about stability, and stability means a good economy and that means good business relations with Uncle Sam.

Re:In-window popup autoplaying video ads with soun

[cdrudge]

Why do you need an ad-blocker on slashdot?

Because it's far more convenient to presume that EVERY site has ads and just run an adblocker on every site then it is to not run one and have to enable it when you visit a site that has them.

Any time I use a computer that's not my own I cringe when I visit a site I frequent and realize how awful the internet is with ads enabled.

Have any idea what you are talking about?

[Zeorge]

Sounds like you are playing a video or board game. Any ways, so many other countries from the "eastern block" have joined or are on their way to be part of the EU. Russia doesn't want to as it has its own resources and its own oligarchy in place and those people don't want to impact their lifestyle. That whole country is an oligarchy of monopolies that permeates everything from food to infrastructure. They'd have to give that up to join the EU.

Forbes NOT reporting

[radarskiy]

This is an op-ed column, not a news article. Many news organization disclaim all fact-checking on op-eds; I don't know Forbes' specific policy.

Bullshit

[Katatsumuri]

Modded insightful by other "Russian World" enthusiasts, apparently.

Ukrainian new unelected leadership is more like Hitler.

Putin's annexation of Crimea repeats Hitler's early annexations one for one, including the "referendum" part.

"Right Sector", the hardcore right-wing faction, is low in head count and public support (1-3%) and has zero representation in the current government. The more moderate but still nationalist-driven "Svoboda" has about 5% support and also not much power. The rest are normal politicians by Western standards.

The current government was temporarily appointed by the parliament, which was the single possible solution after the previous president had failed to suppress the protests and fled the country. A real election is scheduled on May 25, and Russia is trying hard to prevent it in order to prolong the current suspended state.

No-one was "abolishing equal rights". There was a move to revoke a controversial language law introduced by the previous administration, but the temporary president (whom you criticize) has blocked the move, demanding that a new, better version of the law should be negotiated and accepted by the parliament first.

Please stop trolling here.

Re:Bullshit

[Katatsumuri]

Once again, the "abolishing" did not happen. Imagine people who felt that Ukrainian unity and sovereignty was under threat from that law, people who felt repressed by the previous administration and promised to their voters to fight. I am not advocating one way or another, but I understand why they tried to revoke that law. I'm also glad that they managed to moderate themselves.

I also don't want to delve into whether Crimea was a "gift". In any case, Russia recognized Ukrainian borders in the 90s, and even promised to protect them. And now we have an aggressive takeover.

It is sad to see how some people support revising of historical borders using military force. If this becomes popular, the world will be a very violent place. There are so many regions that changed owners throughout history.

Re:Bullshit

[Hypotensive]

Crimea has always been Russian

It was a part of the Ottoman Empire for considerably longer than it was part of the Russian Empire (1485-1783 = 298 years versus 1783-1954 = 174 years).

Lost of neo-con half-lies and garbage

[guacamole]

Forbes reported on Monday that The President of Russia's Council on Civil Society and Human Rights very briefly and supposedly by accident posted the actual results of the Crimean secession vote.

Forbes is one of the primary neo-con internet mouthpieces. They have posted an incredible amount of ridiculous, 100% emotionally driven, and 0% fact-based articles on the Ukraine conflict.

Moreover, the claim that's based on a website that was taken down is pure garbage. At least give us an archive version, please?

There is no way for this claim to be verified as no foreign observers were allowed during the voting process.

Foreign observers were allowed in Crimea, and I have seen many on TV, from Finland, Serbia, etc. If Americans, Germans, or British refused to attend, that's their problem.

The vote is reportedly being conducted again during the 'May 11 referendum on the status of the so-called People's Republic of Donetsk.'"

The vote is NOT conducted AGAIN. That's a different referendum, concerning a different territory and has nothing to do with Crimea.

Re:On the other hand...

[Vicarius]

If you recall, Snowden absolutely didn't want to stay in Russia. He just got stuck there and nobody else would give him an asylum. He was simply abandoned by other "free" democratic countries.

Forbes DID NOT report this

[guacamole]

Let me point out that the article was based in the op-ed column by Paul Roderick Gregory, who referred to a web piece that we can no longer find ourselves. This guy has been posting anti-Russian articles, often quite ridiculous ones, about once a week of Forbes's web site. In my view, this guy is simply a neo-con mouthpiece and has zero credibility.

Re:Forbes DID NOT report this

[Cyberax]

Here's a list of independence referenda, quite a few of them have 80%+ turnout: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I... It is NOT unheard of.

Ukraine's very own independence referendum in 1991 had 85% turnout with 92% voting for independence.

Re:82% was always suspect

[jd.schmidt]

My first comment on the election results were this, I said it was a shame that Russia had obviously faked the results because there probably is some real underlying support for unification with Russia, but this fake vote will undermine legitimacy long term. Maybe I was lucky, but it sure seems like I was right. If about half of those who participated voted to join with Russia, there is obviously real underlying support for unifying. I never doubted this. The problem was so many people would never vote for such a radical change. Russia could probably have managed a plurality between stay with Ukraine, independence or Russian unification. Maybe they could have even pulled of a narrow majority in a mostly honest two choice vote. But that kind of support was too obviously fake.

Re greater autonomy

[AHuxley]

The East is pro Russian as they know what awaits for them under a national pro EU gov. More of the same lack of services, more of the same 'deals'.
Like many regions in the post 1990 EU/East bloc region better to vote to get out and elect you own regional people than trust been ruled via the EU or locals supported/funded by the EU/USA.>