BALTIMORE, Maryland March 16, 2014 (4:23 pm) - A Russian media outlet in Moscow says 95% of all voters in the "referendum" Sunday in Crimea want to cecede from Ukraine and become part of the Russian Federation. The outlet, called "The Voice of Russia" says 40% of Crimea's Tatar population took part in the referendum. It is believed that most of the voters were ethnic Russians.
The Crimean Peninsula was mostly comprised of ethnic Tatars until the years immediately after World War II, when Russian leader Josef Stalin "cleansed" the peninsula of Tatars because, he said, they sympathized with Germany in World War II. In fact, the Tatars fought valiantly and held the peninsula's interior for years against the Nazi onslaught. Stalin had the Tatars resettled in Central Asia. After Stalin's death, some Tatars returned. Today, they are thought to make up about 12% of Crimea's population.
A newspaper in Crimea published in Russian and with admittedly pro-Russian views, "Pravda Crimea," said the official voter turnout was about 82%. According to the Voice of Russia, the Duma (Russia's legislature) will move quickly on legislation enabling Crimea to be annexed to the Russian Federation.
In America, and in Germany and Poland, leaders promised quick aanctions after the referendum, which they all called illegal and without meaning. At a meeting last week in Warsaw between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian Prime Minister Donald Tusk, it was agreed that additional sanctions against Russia would be promptly imposed. In addition, both promised quick economic assistance to Kiev. The Ukrainian economic situation is quite desperate, and western observers fear that one thing that could pull Kiev back toward Moscow is Kiev's economic situation. Merkel said "signing of the political part of the association agreement [between the EU and Ukraine]...could even be possible at the next European Council," See more at "The News" in Warsaw at: http://www.thenews.pl/1/10/Artykul/164992,Poland-and-Germany-threaten-further-Russian-sanctions#sthash.JL0kAT27.dpuf.
Sports: Ukrainian Premier League Update: Dynamo Kiev holds on to beat Tavriya, 2-1; Metalist Kharkiv and Hoveria Uzhhorod battle to 1-1 draw In an earlier post on the Ukrainian Premier League, the above two games were not yet complete. Now they are.
The table now looks like this: 1. Shakhtar Donetsk: 13 wins, 2 draws, 3 losses, 41 points; 2. Dynamo Kiev: 11 wins, 3 draws, 4 losses, 36 points; 3. Dnipro: 10 wins, 5 draws, 2 losses, 35 points; 4. Metalist Kharkiv: 9 wins, 7 draws, 1 loss, 34 points; 5. Ch. Odessa: 9 wins, 5 draws, 3 losses, 32 points; 6. Vorskla Poltava: 6 wins, 8 draws, 4 losses, 26 points; 7. Zorya: 6 wins, 7 draws, 5 losses, 25 points; 8. Met. Donetsk: 6 wins, 6 draws, 6 losses, 24 points; 9. Volyn Lutsk: 6 wins, 5 draws, 7 losses, 23 points; 10. (tie) Karpaty: 4 wins, 7 draws, 6 losses, 19 points; 10. (tie) FC Sevastopol: 5 wins, 4 draws, 9 losses, 19 points; 12. Mariupol: 5 wins, 3 draws, 10 losses, 18 points; 13. Hoverla Uzhhorod: 4 wins, 3 draws, 11 losses, 15 points; 14. (tie) Metalurg Zaporozhye: 1 win, 5 draws, 12 losses, 8 points; 14. (tie) Tavriya: 2 wins, 2 draws, 14 losses, 8 points.
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