I’ve been trying to locate a really good article I read about the subject without much luck… Putin is done with the Ukraine. I do not think Russia is going to do anything beyond annexation of the Crimea. The reason: Because the Crimea is a special case legally. (1) The Crimea was given illegally by Nakita Khruschev to the Ukraine in 1954, without any authorization by the Russians in Crimea or from the Duma. It’s worth noting that only 13 members of the Secretariat voted to this, the other 14 were simply absent. (2) As a compromise, the Crimea became an autonomous Russian Region within Ukraine and its constitution stated as such. The means the Crimea could, at any time, vote and rejoin Russia, which is what happened. (3) The propaganda from the EU and the USA and NATO trying to characterize Russian behavior as illegal is a lie. There are treaties between Russia and Ukraine in 1991, 1994, 2004, and 2007 which make everything that has happened perfectly legal within the law – and in 1999 the World Court in the Hague, responding to a question, stated that any people, exercizing self-determination, can quit one state and join another legally.

“FTAC” — “From the Awesome Conversation” (on Facebook).

“Elena Elena” — A Facebook friend and writer of the above quoted passage.

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With the arrival of common broadband, access to the English-language editions for foreign newspapers, blogging software, and social networks — basic ingredients — any English reading and writing Everyman lucky enough to have the lifestyle, technology, and time could travel by armchair around the world and through its war zones with unprecedented freedom.

So I, you, and we have done as much.

We have seen it all!

But, perhaps, we haven’t seen it at all at all.

As elsewhere, the devils in history are in the details of events, and while hopscotching from revolution to terror, from the diplomacy of the hour to the heart wrenching atrocity of the day, one may discover missing the clear, accurate, and complete intimacy with story that comes with specialization.

How difficult might such specialization be here in mid-flight?

Here’s the step-off for recent events by way of the Modern Broadbanded Everyman’s Wikipedia entry:

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Crimea became part of the newly independent Ukraine. Independence was supported by a referendum in all regions of Ukrainian SSR, including Crimea.[17] 54% of the Crimean voters supported independence with a 60% turnout (in Sevastopol 57% supported independence).[18] The percentage of the total Crimean electorate that had voted for Ukrainian independence in the referendum was 37%.[19] In 1994, the legal status of Crimea as part of Ukraine was backed up by Russia, who pledged to uphold the territorial integrity of Ukraine in a memorandum signed in 1994, also signed by the US and UK.[20][21]

This new situation led to tensions between Russia and Ukraine. With the Black Sea Fleet based on the peninsula, worries of armed skirmishes were occasionally raised. In August 1991, Yuriy Meshkov established the Republican Movement of Crimea which was registered on 19 November.[20]

On 2 September 1991, the National Movement of Crimean Tatars appealed to the V Extraordinary Congress of People’s Deputies in Russia demanding the program how to return the deported Tatar population back to Crimea. Based on the resolution of the Verkhovna Rada (the Crimean parliament) on 26 February 1992, the Crimean ASSR was renamed the Republic of Crimea.[22] The Crimean parliament proclaimed self-government on 5 May 1992.[23][22] (which was yet to be approved by a referendum to be held 2 August 1992[clarification needed Did the referendum happen, or was it cancelled?][24]) and passed the first Crimean constitution the same day.[24] On 6 May 1992 the same parliament inserted a new sentence into this constitution that declared that Crimea was part of Ukraine.[24]

Huh?

As a Wikipedia section note tells, the above passage might be too detailed.

Be that as it may, what it also tells is how time may be needed to read, sift, and reflect on descriptions of events, of the evidence of events, until they make sense, the rhetoric and actions of so many conflicted parties tumbling finally into place in an historian’s mind in a way less ambiguous than may be perceived in a hurry.

Add this commonplace too: nothing beats being there.

The armchair bobbing on the foam of the information deluge and short form Wikitype “learnin'” might not suffice for accurate and reliable comprehension.

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