Conditions for reunification of Crimea and Russia were created by the Ukrainian authorities

By Vestnik Kavkaza

The US sanctions launched against Russia after the reunification with Crimea will stay in force till the peninsula returns to Ukraine, according to a statement by the official representative of the State Department of the USA, Jen Psaki. The State Department also accuses Russia of repressing the ethnic minorities of Crimea. The Crimean authorities are ready to welcome any politicians who want to visit the republic, not only “Jennifer Psaki, but also others who don’t want to hear a different point of view,” the head of Crimea Sergei Aksenov said.

Meanwhile, the Russian Statistics Service has published the results of a population census which was held in Crimea last autumn. It turned out that 70% of Crimea’s residents identify themselves as Russians; 16% as Ukrainians, more than 10% as Crimean Tatars. Representatives of other nationalities represent less than 4%. Belarusians – 1%, Armenians – 0.2%. 84% of respondents called the Russian language their native language; 7.9% - the Crimean Tatar language; 3.7% - the Tatar language; and 3.3% - the Ukrainian language. 79.7% of the Ukrainians, 24.8% of the Tatars, and 5.6% of the Crimean Tatars consider Russian their native language.

The head of the Crimean project expert group, Sergei Mikheyev, is deeply convinced that the return of Crimea to Russia was indeed an act of historical justice, but, nevertheless, when being viewed from the point of view of the political situation, we must admit that it happened first of all because of the total inefficiency of the Ukrainian state.

“All the conditions for all the things that happened were created by the Ukrainian government. And not only the new authorities, but also the previous ones. For 23 years nothing was done for Crimea, but, most importantly, the Ukrainian state did not create a situation in which people would not feel alien. The attitude of the Ukrainian elite during all those years towards Crimeans was of concealed hatred. People were strangers in their own country.

The people who came to power in Kiev using Western partners had neither the mind nor the imagination to understand how to build relationships in Ukraine, like how to make sure that people do not want to run away from this so-called free and democratic country. Instead, they put at the heart a bunch of historical complexes. Hatred, malice and, frankly speaking, the desire to rule without control and kill,” Mikheyev is sure.

With regard to the rise of civic consciousness in Crimea, he noted: “Personally, in all the years of so-called post-Soviet Russia I had never seen such events, to be honest. I have not seen such a sincere, selfless movement of people for some common matter. Here, they say, the Crimeans were considering who will get a bigger or smaller salary. I understand that the majority of Crimeans did not count on a calculator who and where and how much more would pay them. They were just extremely tired of living in today's Ukraine.”

Sergei Mikheyev thinks that Crimea now has the opportunity to provide an example to other Russian regions, for example in the fight against corruption in the organization of local government: “The terribly corrupt Ukrainian reality is a thing of the past, and in Crimea, in my opinion, in some sense the situation is even better than in many Russian regions. This experience should be developed and established as a model for other regions. Our goal is to remove the negative Ukrainian practice, not to allow Russian negative ones.”