(Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
Written by Vladimir Rodzianko; Originally appeared at TheDuran
Moscow is adamant that Crimea will not be returned to Ukraine.
A day after White House spokesman Sean Spicer said that Crimea should be “returned” to Ukraine – Russia lashed back saying in no way will Crimea be “given back” to Ukraine, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in response.
“We don’t return our territories. Crimea is a territory of the Russian Federation,” Zakharova said at a weekly news briefing, referring to the Black Sea peninsula that voted in a referendum to join Russia in early 2014.
Crimea became a part of the Russian Empire back in the 18th century, but was reassigned to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954 by the Soviet Union’s ruling presidium under Nikita Khrushchev. Crimea rejoined Russia after a 2014 referendum, when almost 97 percent of the region’s population voted for reunification, while the city of Sevastopol supported the move by 95.6 percent of votes.
The majority of those living in Crimea today are ethnic Russians – almost 1,200,000 or about 58 percent of the population, according to the last national census conducted back in 2001. Some 24 percent are Ukrainians (around 500,000) and 12 percent are Crimean Tatars.
“The issue of Crimea return is absolutely clear — it is part of Russia and it cannot be subject of bargaining between Russia and the United States, no matter what is at stake,” Viktor Ozerov, chairman of the defense committee in the Russian upper house of parliament, told Sputnik International on Tuesday.
During the election campaign Trump claimed he would “consider” recognizing Crimea as part of Russia following the referendum in the peninsula, adding that the Crimeans wanted to live in Russia.
With the recent resignation of Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump’s National Security Advisor, over alleged discussions he had with the Russian Ambassador, and the current rhetoric coming out of Washington, puts the proposed US-Russia detente in limbo. The next few hours and days will be very telling.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.
– Albert Einstein
it seems that Ukraine is just a very small territory. it only became big because of the USSR which is communist. they should be thankful to the communist for having a big country once..or they can fight for the restoration of the USSR to take back their glory days. ahhhh but they hate communist..they love nazis.
Actually, Ukraine as a territory isn’t much smaller than the state of same name. What was small and grown like a cancerous tumor is the area of “ukrainian” language influence after it was codified following Austrian-Hungarian strategy on the basis of OLD POLISH, not even modern polish of that time, and then violently spread on territories where people antagonized poles and their language.
The CIA had a “wet dream” , that was the Ukrainian revolution , which they funded, and thought they had the crown jewel , the diamond of the Black Sea , Crimea . Knowing nothing of Russian and Ukrainian history , Crimea fled back to Russia . Now the rest of Ukraine must find a way to ditch the nazis .
When will the filthy neocons get it – RUSSIA WILL NOT USE PEOPLE FOR GAME PIECES. I applaud Russia for this very human stance.
You are wrong. We do sacrifice ourself and many others, sometimes for great reasons, sometimes without reason at all. Rarely it hapens, when we get dragged into a game, but our very nature is incompatible with sick games. And though our culture clearly states, that there are no situations without options in life, sometimes our leadership recognize only the choices fitting the rules. Yet even the most bloody (and some actually for that exact reason) leaders are accepted by following generations and called great.
We are not humanistic, just succesful with historical intuition.