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Comment by majia | Hacker News Reader

If Crimea was unwillingly annexed by Russia, then the sanction is punishing the victim instead of the criminal. If Crimea people genuinely supported the unification with Russia and received sanction for that, then it is a blatant attack on Crimean people's freedom.

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The idea is to try and make it unsustainable for Russia to hold. --They have to pour money into the region to keep control of it due to people in the region being unhappy, out of work, etc.

I'm not saying it's necessarily a good strategy, mind you.

> They have to pour money into the region to keep control of it due to people in the region being unhappy, out of work, etc.

From what I've heard Russia is doing exactly that. And the people there seem happy, atleast according to a reddit AMA by a Crimean.

> And the people there seem happy, atleast according to a reddit AMA by a Crimean.

It's amazing to me that anyone would put any faith in a random AMA in an occupied territory.

For an alternative random redditor, this guy had to get divorced, all his friends left, and he's leaving for Kiev: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/9p6d9r/serious_r...

Save for the indigenous Crimean Tatars and some Ukrainians who are, although a minority, being harassed like there's no tomorrow.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/11/14/crimea-persecution-crime...

Well, seeing we already talk anecdotes… I was there myself this year in May on a week-long hike and a few days at the sea, and they're doing alright. The year of 2014 was quite rough (especially with the electricity shortages when Ukraine cut off their supplies), but now, with the two new power plants, they're energetically self-sustainable. After the bridge link to the mainland opened last year and with a newly-rebuilt airport in Simferopol, they also no longer feel so isolated.

> The idea is to try and make it unsustainable for Russia to hold

Why, then, blocking does not apply to all Russia, but to its victims only?

That’s horrible. I was unaware of this until now and I’m deeply upset by it. :(

What do you then suggest? Going to war about it, or just letting territorial annexations continue?

If you have no better alternative, what reason is there to be upset?

Yeah, tell that to all my friends who had to leave the Crimea. "Voting" after the Russian armed forces had been brought is not significant.

The only situation when economics sanctions isn't an attack against the victims is if a fully democratic country decided to start a war.

Some dictators are popular and their actions are supported by the people.

The victim in Crimea annexation is Budapest Memorandum (1994) that protected Ukrainian territorial integrity in exchange for Ukraine giving up nuclear weapons.

The United States (and other western countries) are concerned that Crimea annexation encourages nuclear weapons proliferation.

Sanctions against Crimea discourage potential annexations and lower chances of nuclear weapons proliferation in the future.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...

You mean eastern Ukraine? Russians came in and installed an illegal regime. Add in some ethnic cleansing, and the situation is not remotely what you claim. Add in downing of MH17 airliner, and its obvious they pose a danger to all of us.

There's a lot of whataboutism going on in this thread, but it is clear that these sanctions exist for reasons, and for Crimea, those are pretty solid reasons.

The whataboutisms about what other countries may or may not have done is immaterial. If you want to put some people who happen to live in the crimean region who cannot access and internet service in the same category as downing an airliner and ethnic cleansing, good luck.

pff, ridiculous comment. a region doesn't have the right to attach itself to another state.

think about it. a bunch of russians move to somewhere near grand canion, do a referendum and then proclaim it russian territory.

But that's _literally_ how a bunch of countries split from other countries. In a different context, we might celebrate it and call it "gaining independence" or "reuniting with their motherland".

There aren't many examples of Unification, but there are examples, maybe this wouldn't be considered one of them.

My home country for instance is the "United Kingdom" which is made of up of countries/territories that unified many hundreds of years ago.

There's other examples such as the formation of Italy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_unification

However, if it's not annexation it's probably better described as "ceding"; an American example: France ceded Louisiana to the United States by the treaty of Paris, of April 30, 1803. Spain made a cession of East and West Florida by the treaty of February 22, 1819.

Cessions have been severally made of a part of their territory by New York, Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia.

unified is a proper term perhaps but at the time the gaelic speaking peoples would have probably used conquered or maybe colonized.

This is not an appreciable understanding of history. If talking about the UK specifically.

Crimea is a special case: it used to be Russian but was reassigned to the Ukraine at the time when they both were part of the USSR. It wasn't a big deal until the USSR dissolved and suddenly Crimean residents turned out to be in a foreign country.

It had been Turkish before it was Russian. Should we go on? Besides, the indigenous population (Crimean Tatars) and the Ukrainians in Crimea never thought of Ukraine as a foreign country.

Let's not confuse events of the 18th century and the modern history.

Crimea was called Crimean Khanate at that time and the backbone of its economy was the slave trade. As a major slave trade hub it has seen many hundreds of thousands of Russians and Ukrainians captured by Crimean Tatars and sold to Turkey until Catherine the Great's counter-terrorist operation finally put an end to it in 1783 :)

This dramatic history rooted in inability of the Crimean Khanate peacefully coexist with Russia can hardly be compared with a single action of a Soviet bureaucrat in Moscow in 1954.

And you are misinformed, Crimeans Tatars are not the indigenous population, they are a remnant of the Golden Horde.

> Let's not confuse events of 18th century and the modern history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_the_Crimean_Tat...

Are you and 'tomohawk' the same person? Otherwise I don't see a reason why you have brought up 'ethnic cleansing' in this thread.

Nonetheless, the deportation of Crimean Tatars by Stalin in 1944 is a crime and has been repeatedly recognized as such by the modern Russia.

"Most of the Russian population in Crimea are second/third generation settlers"

Even the biased Wikipedia article you linked to doesn't support that.

Edit: please don't edit your comments after they have a reply. Thank you.

Yes, I was off with the numbers, so I had deleted my comment just before you replied to it. But the point is still valid: the current ethnic composition of Crimea was greatly affected by the deportation.

> According to your own link Crimean Tatars constituted 20% of the population in 1939, nowadays the number 12-15%. I wouldn't call it 'greatly affected'.

Lots of people died as a result of the deportation. The uprooting inhibited the natural population growth over the years. Lots of Crimean Tatars now live outside of Crimea.

I don't see your point, honestly.

According to your own link Crimean Tatars constituted 20% of the population in 1939, nowadays the number 12-15%.

I wouldn't call it 'greatly affected'.

You're totally right. Think about it, British/French/Spanish/... move to somewhere near grand canyon, do a referendum and they proclaim it United States? Ridiculous!

Indeed, tell King George about it, and at the very least return Texas to Mexico and Mexico to Spain.

Hey, it happened before

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas#Statehood

Isn't that how Texas became part of the US?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Revolution

This was basically Kosovo, Transnistria and probably a few more.

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