Disinfo: Crimea was and will always be Russian

Summary

Since the times of Catherine II, Crimea is Russian and at the end of the Soviet Union, people of Crimea expressed their will to be part of Russia but it was ignored and in 2014 a new referendum was finally recognised. 96% of people voted to join Russia. As long as Russia will exist as a state, Crimea will be part of it. Today people in Crimea are extremely happy about not being part of Ukraine anymore.

Disproof

Recurrent disinformation on Crimea status and the population of Crimea. Crimea is part of Ukraine. In 1783 Catherine II (the Great) annexed Crimean peninsula. After that, the rivalry between the Russians and the Turks persisted, and in the Crimean War (1853–56) it expanded into a broader European conflict. When the Revolution of 1917 led to the collapse of the Russian Empire, the remaining Crimean Tatars declared Crimea to be an independent democratic republic. The peninsula was reorganized as the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1921. After the war, Crimea was downgraded from an autonomous republic to an oblast (region) of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. In February 1954, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR confirmed the need for Crimea to join Soviet Ukraine. Legally, the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine ended on 26 April 1954, on the basis of the relevant law of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. According to international law, Crimea is a part of Ukraine. After the collapse of the USSR, Russia reaffirmed respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine. By signing the 1997 Friendship Treaty, Russia also recognised that Crimea is an integral part of Ukraine. No international body recognises the so-called referendum, announced on the 27th of February 2014, and held on 16th of March 2014. Today, not everyone in Crimea is "extremely happy" to be under Russian administration. Though, expressing any dissatisfaction can be very risky: human rights violations in Crimea are serious and repeated recently said France. The UN continues to document violations of international human rights and humanitarian law perpetrated by the Russian Federation, as the occupying Power, including deportations of protected persons, forced conscription and restrictions on freedom of expression. As for the referendum, the oft-cited figure of 96% has been contested by the Kremlin’s own Human Rights Council, which estimated that only between 30% and 50% of Crimeans took part in the referendum, of which some 50-60% favoured secession. Read similar cases claiming that historical Crimean Russian land returned, that over 95% of Crimea voted to be part of Russia, Crimea always was Russian, Crimean people have expressed their desire to rejoin Russia in a democratic process, and that Crimea never belonged to Ukraine.

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fr.sputniknews.com (Archived)
  • Reported in: Issue 203
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 15/06/2020
  • Outlet language(s) French
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: Ukraine, Russia
  • Keywords: illegal annexation, Human rights, Manipulated elections/referendum, Budapest memorandum, Crimean Tatars, Ethnic Russians, Crimea
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Disinfo: In February 2014, a violent coup d'état took place in Kyiv

In February 2014, a violent coup d’état took place in Kyiv, when the then Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was forced to flee as a result of dozens of unsolved murders during the fighting between activists and police forces and violent threats by radical right-wing forces. With their first act in power, the Maidan forces showed what they were most interested in and thereby confirmed the fears that the Maidan revolution was much more of a nationalist coup d’état than an emancipatory act.

Jun 14, 2020
Disproof

There was no coup d’état in Kyiv in 2014; this is a longstanding pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about Ukraine's Euromaidan protests. The spontaneous onset of the Euromaidan protests was a reaction from several segments of the Ukrainian population to former President Yanukovych’s sudden departure from the promised Association Agreement with the European Union in November 2013, after pressure from Russia. See the full debunk The Western-backed coup in Ukraine has torn the country asunder.

Disinfo: American officials repeatedly promised Gorbachev that NATO would not expand eastward after the reunification of Germany

At the end of the 1980s, when Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to withdraw Soviet troops from Germany, American officials repeatedly promised Gorbachev that NATO would not expand eastward after the reunification of Germany.

Jun 14, 2020
Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about encircled Russia. Back in 2014, Gorbachev rejected this claim stating that the topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all. NATO Allies take decisions by consensus and these are recorded. There is no record of any decision that NATO would not to expand after the Cold War having been taken by the Alliance. Even if there was a personal assurance from an individual leader, it could not replace Alliance consensus and does not constitute a formal NATO agreement. Former Warsaw Pact countries began seeking NATO membership in the early 1990s. NATO actively sought to create a cooperative environment that was conducive to enlargement while simultaneously building special relations with Russia. NATO does not "expand" in the imperialistic sense described by pro-Kremlin media. Rather, it considers the applications of candidate countries who want to join the alliance based on their own national will. As such, NATO enlargement is not directed against Russia. NATO's "Open Door Policy" is based on Article 10 of the Alliance's founding document, the North Atlantic Treaty (1949). The Treaty states that NATO membership is open to any "European state in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area". Every sovereign nation has the right to choose its own security arrangements. This is a fundamental principle of European security and one to which Russia has also subscribed. Read here similar cases claiming that the US government promised Mikhail Gorbachev that the Atlantic Alliance would not expand to the East, that NATO forgot all the previously existing agreements and expanded despite promises made to Gorbachev.

Disinfo: NATO establishes a colonial relationship with Ukraine disguised as partnership

NATO issued another item in the long list of “incentives” designed to mock Ukraine. The organisation designed Ukraine as an “Enhanced Opportunities Partner” along with other five nations (Georgia, Sweden, Finland, Australia and Jordan), rewarding their important contributions to NATO operations and goals with the opportunity of increasing dialogue and cooperation with the Alliance. Given its long history of political and military interaction with NATO, including a decade-long military deployment in Afghanistan, Ukraine reached a level of interoperability with NATO higher than some actual member states. Ukraine resembles NATO, speaks like NATO, acts like NATO, but it is not NATO, and it won’t be. So the question is what kind of relation NATO has in mind regarding to Ukraine, given that it will never become a member. By granting the status of “Enhanced Opportunities Partner” to Ukraine and those other nations, NATO is expanding its military capabilities without assuming the risks linked to the expansion of its membership. Ukrainian troops can be sacrificed in far lands without any real security interest for the Ukrainian people, but NATO will never mobilise under Article 5 to help Kyiv in its own territory. The relation reflects that of a colonial master and its vassal, demanding a lot and delivering little.

Jun 14, 2020
Disproof

Recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about NATO and Ukraine. Contrary to the claim, the nature of Ukraine’s relation with the Atlantic Alliance is totally voluntary, as was the country’s participation in NATO missions in Kosovo and Afghanistan. The Enhanced Opportunities Partnership is a tailor-made programme to benefit both sides, not a colonial-style servitude. Kyiv requested formal membership of the Alliance in 2008, but plans to join it were shelved after Ukraine’s Parliament rejected it, and reemerged after Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and its sponsoring of the conflict in Donbas. In all these cases, the decision was taken solely by Ukrainian authorities. Though popular support for joining NATO was rather low among Ukrainians prior to 2014, it started to increase in that year due to Russia’s aggression against the country. In 2019, this support reached 53 percent, against 29 percent who oppose it. Other surveys confirmed these results. NATO membership is a stated goal of the current government of Volodymyr Zelenskyy. You can see other examples of these disinformation narratives in our database, such as claims that NATO instructors prepare Ukrainian soldiers to become war criminals, that Kyiv escalates the situation in the Azov Sea on behalf of the US and the Atlantic Alliance and prepares to build NATO bases in Donbas, that the Ukrainian government is a NATO puppet regime, or that NATO will invade Western regions of Ukraine.