True ties: Crimea votes to join Russia

Russia had earlier vetoed a UN security council resolution that declared the referendum invalid, as Ukraine’s defence ministry scrambled aircraft and paratroopers to confront what it said was a Russian encroachment just beyond Crimea’s formal regional boundary. Ukraine’s new rulers accused ‘Kremlin agents’ of fomenting violence in the Russian-speaking east of the country. They urged people not to respond to provocations that Kiev fears Moscow may use to justify further incursions after its takeover of Crimea. Russia issued a new statement saying it was ready to protect Ukrainians from nationalist militants who it said were threatening eastern cities. Sunday’s vote in Crimea, dismissed as illegal by Kiev and Western governments, has triggered the worst east-west crisis since the cold war. It also marks a new peak in turmoil in Ukraine that goes back to November, when the now-ousted president, Viktor Yanukovich, walked away from a trade deal with the European Union. ‘This  annexation ... goes beyond Ukraine. It concerns us all,’ France’s UN ambassador said after the security council vote. US President Barack Obama is sending Vice President Joe Biden with a message of reassurance to Poland, a former Soviet bloc state, and the Baltic states, which until 1991 were ruled by Moscow.

European leaders and US President Barack Obama have dismissed the vote — organized by Crimea’s pro-Russian authorities at short notice — as illegitimate, saying it would violate Ukraine’s constitution. 

According to ballot papers published before the referendum, voters have the right to choose one of two options, neither of which rejects control by Russia. The first question asks: ‘Are you in favour of the reunification of Crimea with Russia as a part of the Russian Federation?’ The second asks: ‘Are you in favour of restoring the 1992 Constitution and the status of Crimea as a part of Ukraine?’ At first glance, the second option seems to offer the prospects of the peninsula remaining within Ukraine.  

But the 1992 national blueprint is far from doing that. Instead, it foresees giving Crimea all the qualities of an independent entity within Ukraine — but with the broad right to determine its own path and choose relations with whom it wants — including with Russia.