BALTIMORE, Maryland March 17, 2014 (9:15 am) - On St. Patrick's Day, the day after Russia rammed a referendum down Crimea's throat, the free world now will try to muster enough resolve to push back against Moscow and Strong Man Vladimir Putin. The Russian Duma leadership promised over the weekend to move swiftly to bring Crimea into the Russian Federation. In direct response, the Ukrainian Defense Minister activated all Ukrainian Reservists and promised to increase military spending. In a Sunday telephone conversation with Putin, USA President Barack Obama said America would never recognize Russia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen discussed the latest developments in Ukraine, including the so-called referendum in Ukraine’s Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the Alliance’s plan to intensify the NATO-Ukraine partnership with Andriy Deshchytsya, Ukraine’s Acting Foreign Minister on Monday, according to the NATO web address. After polls closed in Crimea, British Foreign Secretary William Hague released a statement condemning the referendum, calling it “a mockery of proper democratic practice,” the Washington Post and Concord, New Hampshire Monitor reported.
Despite the West's warnings, 20,000 Russian Troops remain in Crimea and thousands of other troops are massed on the Russian-Ukraine border. There was a report Saturday that some 120 Russian commandos backed by helicopter gunships seized a natural gas terminal in Eastern Ukraine, some six miles inside of Eastern Ukraine. Ukraine later asserted that its forces retook the facility. Also on Sunday, a full slate of soccer matches in the Ukrainian Premier League went forward without any reported incidents.
The Washington Post reported on Sunday that USA Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also spoke yesterday, and in conjunction with that conversation, Lavrov released a statement that some observers thought was somewhat promising. “The results should be the starting point in determining the future of the peninsula,” Lavrov said in the statement. Other Russian statements indicated that the vote was the final word of the Crimean people and Russia would act quickly to formalize the area's entry into the Russian Federation.
The population of Crimea is 12% Tatar, and a report yesterday said that only 40% of Crimean Tatars voted in the referendum. Other reports said that figure was far lower and some polling places said that by mid-afternoon not a single Tatar had cast a ballot. Some Tatars called for a boycott of the vote and others advocated an old Tatar form of resistance called a "vareneky protest," which involves families making a Tatar-style form of ravioli and sharing it amongst families rather than participating in the activity that the majority has told them to do.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said last week that she hoped the EU would act at their next meeting to provide Ukraine with the kind of monetry assistance it needs.
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