EXPLAINING CRIMEA REUNIFICATION WITH RUSSIA

1. The Crimean people were entitled to self-determination by means of remedial secession i.e. people may claim to secession from an existing state provided that their existence is at stake due to serious massive repressions of that state.
2. At the core of the narrative of the self-determination of the Crimean people is the coup d’état carried out in Ukraine in February of 2014 , which was followed by the collapse of the Ukrainian state; consequently, the Crimean people, fearing possible persecution, acquired the right to secede from Ukraine and join Russia.
3. The political and cultural autonomy of Crimea, consolidated in the Constitution of 6 May 1992 adopted by the Supreme Council of the Crimean Autonomous Republic, ensured the retention of its Russianness . This autonomy was a compromise that gave the Russian people the possibility for the full-fledged realization of their right to self-determination without seceding from Ukraine, i.e. within the Ukrainian state.
4. Ethnic Russians in Crimea are not a minority, since the Crimea historically was a part of Russia.
5. Crimean inhabitants were excluded from political representation. An  unconstitutional coup deprived the Crimean people of the right to representation in the central government of Ukraine. The direct exclusion of the Crimean population from participation in political communication was linked with the removal of Viktor Yanukovych from the office of the President of Ukraine, as well as with an inadequately representative transitional Ukrainian government and the lustration process. Technically speaking the Ukrainian parliament did not remove Yanukovych from office but merely voted to accept Yanukovych’s “voluntary renunciation of duties.” The fact that 328 votes were cast in a 449 member assembly requiring 337 votes for an impeachment settles this issue beyond doubt.
6. The actions on behalf of Russia was a necessary and inevitable response to blatantly illegal actions of the Kiev authorities that performed a coup, as well as to a direct military threat to security of the Russian population of Crimea.
7. The initiative for the repeal of the law on regional languages, numerous cases of the demolition of monuments, anti-Russian proclamations can be viewed as an attempt to impose cultural requirements, which can be overcome only at the expense of the loss of the identity of a nation.
8. In terms of the contemporary Western European legal tradition, founded on the principle of government by the people, the principal legal ground for the reunification of Crimea with Russia was the 16 March 2014 referendum, which showed the genuine striving of the overwhelming majority of Crimean people to join Russia. The referendum was an independent and, in principle, unconditional ground for the secession of Crimea. The destiny of the Crimea was decided by the expression of the will of the Crimean people and the people of its historical homeland – Russia.
9. The aim of the Russian armed forces was not to influence the expression of free will, but to create conditions for expressing this will, i.e. to help the “people of Crimea” to realize self-determination. There has not been a single reliable fact established about any kind of pressure or, the more so, pressure imposed by the force of arms on the people who came to the referendum. Russian forces were called upon to protect the people of Crimea against the forcible actions by the Ukrainian authorities depriving the citizens of the possibility of holding the referendum. The actions of Russia, which prevented the Kiev government from intervening in the course of events, cannot be viewed as coercion against the inhabitants of Crimea. The actions of Russia were lawful, since they were based on the consent of the population of Crimea.
10. The reunification aimed at repairing the damage done by the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991:  The division of Russia and Crimea was largely artificial and in the process of the disintegration of the USSR a satisfactory legal settlement of territorial issues was, for historical reasons, not implemented. Subsequently, the conclusion of bilateral agreements between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, as well as documents of the Commonwealth of Independent States stated only the status quo and did not address the question of the legal status of some of the disputed territories.

Note

11 UN members voted against the General Assembly resolution condemning Russia’s actions in Crimea and more importantly, 58 members abstained and 24  perhaps intentionally were absent for the vote