Germany does own poll, 75% crimeans wanted Russia

a reply to: Greathouse

First off,as far as name calling goes,you should stop. You have no idea if anyone here is a 'Russian shill" or not.Also,for everyone of us that is taking Russia's side in this,there are others who are taking the Anti Russian side or anti Putin. However you want it. The fact that there is so much digging in,shows not that people are being paid,but that they do honestly believe what they saying.

As far as anyone being banned for saying their piece? I think they should ban those who can't debate without it getting personal. I have always said,that when there are several sides to a story,the truth falls somewhere in the middle.

I doubt few of us think that there should not be accountability on both the EU's (west) side,and on the Russian side. I and others have also posted interesting things about all this going on over in Ukraine,but I'm not going to get upset if someone doesn't want to see what I'm saying. In a truly free country you are allowed to be as blind or as truth seeking as you want.

I refuse to let TPTB hold me back from seeking the truth,no matter where it ends up. And yes even I have backtracked on some issues when I found credible sources backing up the other side. But I am not going to sit and wonder why the mods don't start banning people.

originally posted by: burdman30ott6

originally posted by: noeltrotsky
If he would have not invaded but simply pushed for a referendum he would have got Crimea anyway.

Uh, that's exactly what he did. The referendum passed overwhelmingly and Russia entered the region with troops to protect Crimea following said referendum.

Crimiean freedom fighters, who were pro-Russia, kicked Kiev out of Crimea before the referendum... by armed force. Putin obtained Russian parliament's approval to use force in the Ukraine to defend Crimea prior to the referendum, then 2 weeks later the Crimeans voted and joined Russia (with 97% of votes in favor, IIRC). Putin never invaded anything here.

Uhm... were you watching live coverage of the Crimean crisis when it first started? Russian troops were all over Crimea long before the referendum. They were surrounding Ukrainian military bases and demanding the surrender of Ukrainian troops before a referendum had even been discussed. They actually seized Ukrainian fighter planes. Are you telling me that Crimean "freedom fighters" know how to fly SU-27's? Or that said "freedom fighters" were equipped with the latest Russian weaponry and equipment?

There is more than enough evidence out there to prove your version of events completely false. The whole world watched it unfold.



ETA: This simple fact is why the Putin supporters haven't got a leg to stand on when they claim it was necessary for Russia to intervene before Crimeans and Eastern Ukrainians started getting "slaughtered". There was no slaughter. Just an invasion. There was literally no violence in Crimea, and no threat of violence. Most of the drama at the time was occurring in Kiev. Once Russia annexed Crimea, rebel forces in the east were emboldened and subsequently armed, supplied, and even directly aided by the Russian military. THAT is when the violence started, because Ukraine drew a line in the sand.

a reply to: DJW001

Obviously not from the propaganda driven western media that you got your information from if you think what I posted was backwards. The western media pushed the idea that the pre-referendum fighters in Crimea were Russian invaders and the average westerner took it as gospel. What was their evidence?
1. They "appeared" to be Russians...
Uh, Crimea is majority Russian, so most Crimeans look Russian.
2. They were fighting against the government that overthrew Russian ally Yanukovych.
Crimea supported Yanukovych in HUGE way in his latest election, so of course they were pissed to see their voices silenced and their votes marginalized by the Svoboda government.
3. The west's attempt to classify Svoboda as a group of good guys.
Svoboda is absolutely a neo-nazi organization whose roots are traceable to the western Ukrainians who aided and abetted Hitler in WWII, forming their own Waffen SS division to fight against their eastern Ukrainian brothers.

There are facts and there is propaganda... The western media used propaganda to create their own narrative which was entirely devoid of facts. Show me even one shred of proof that Russia was physically responsible for Crimea being defended against Svoboda prior to the referendum.

a reply to: DeadSeraph

The Ukrainian military schismed into eastern (Yanukovych supporting) troops and western (Svoboda supporting) troops. Are you telling me eastern Ukraine didn't produce any fighter pilots in their military?

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
a reply to: DeadSeraph

The Ukrainian military schismed into eastern (Yanukovych supporting) troops and western (Svoboda supporting) troops. Are you telling me eastern Ukraine didn't produce any fighter pilots in their military?

Lets assume you are correct, and there were enough fighter pilots to fill a squadron. Does the fact those bases were taken by the Russian military (a fact now admitted to by Putin himself) count for nothing? You claimed that there were no Russian troops outside of Russian bases in Crimea during the referendum. Not only has that claim been proven false, so has the claim that there were no Russian military forces in Crimea proper leading up to the referendum. The fact remains that your claims hold no water, and there is plenty of evidence to prove it. Why is it you chose to ignore the rest of my post and focus on fighter pilots? For the record, it's highly unlikely there would have been enough trained men within the so called "self defense forces" to handle an entire squadron of SU-27's, considering that particular base was completely surrounded, with most of it's personnel still inside, until they received the order from Kiev to abandon their posts and withdraw from Crimea to avoid a full scale war with Russia.

Putin himself is on record as admitting that the "little green men" seen all over Crimea in the initial days of the crisis were Russian military personnel on direct orders from Moscow.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

Obviously not from the propaganda driven western media that you got your information from if you think what I posted was backwards. The western media pushed the idea that the pre-referendum fighters in Crimea were Russian invaders and the average westerner took it as gospel. What was their evidence?
1. They "appeared" to be Russians...
Uh, Crimea is majority Russian, so most Crimeans look Russian.

No, Vladimir Putin has boasted that they were Russian special forces. I asked where you were getting your information because you do not even seem to be up on the latest Russian propaganda. (See below.)

2. They were fighting against the government that overthrew Russian ally Yanukovych.

Ukraine is not powerful enough to be an ally of Russia. At best, Ukraine could be a client state of Russia. Yanukovych was Russia's puppet, which is why he fled there and has made no attempt to form a de lege "government in exile." He knows no-one would accept him as the legitimate Ukrainian leader; not even Russia, now that his usefulness is at an end.

Crimea supported Yanukovych in HUGE way in his latest election, so of course they were pissed to see their voices silenced and their votes marginalized by the Svoboda government.

What Svoboda government? Svoboda polled less than the 5% it needed to gain a seat in Parliament! Again, where do you get such bad information?

3. The west's attempt to classify Svoboda as a group of good guys.

Obviously, you do not have access to Western media. Western media considers Svoboda to be an embarrassment, not a good guy.

Svoboda is absolutely a neo-nazi organization whose roots are traceable to the western Ukrainians who aided and abetted Hitler in WWII, forming their own Waffen SS division to fight against their eastern Ukrainian brothers.

Which is why it is a good thing that they have ceased to be a political force, now that Yanukovych no longer supports them for their Anti-Western views!

There are facts and there is propaganda... The western media used propaganda to create their own narrative which was entirely devoid of facts. Show me even one shred of proof that Russia was physically responsible for Crimea being defended against Svoboda prior to the referendum.

Here you go:



Cue the Putinistas to explain that this video is "just satire."

It's Pro Truth not Putinistas,please stop deceiving members on this site

Thank you

originally posted by: Whereismypassword
It's Pro Truth not Putinistas,please stop deceiving members on this site

Thank you

I'm not the one trying to rob the Russian Army of its glorious victory in Crimea, as blazoned in this Russian recruiting video... or are you going to go with "satire?"

You're welcome.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

Obviously not from the propaganda driven western media that you got your information from if you think what I posted was backwards. The western media pushed the idea that the pre-referendum fighters in Crimea were Russian invaders and the average westerner took it as gospel. What was their evidence?

The evidence? The testimony of the late Vladimir Vladimirovitch Putin:

The Russian president personally ordered preparation of the Crimean special operation the morning after Yanukovich fled, saying that “we cannot let the [Crimean] people be pushed under the steamroller of the nationalists.”

“I [gave them] their tasks, told them what to do and how we must do it, and stressed that we would only do it if we were absolutely sure that this is what the people living in Crimea want us to do,” Putin said. He added that an emergency public opinion poll indicated that at least 75 percent of the people wanted to join Russia.

There's more.

Ukrainian political scientist Taras Berezovets, a Crimea native, recently started an initiative he called Free Crimea, aided by the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives and aimed at building Ukrainian soft power on the peninsula. He started by commissioning a poll of Crimean residents from the Ukrainian branch of Germany's biggest market research organization, GfK. The poll results were something of a cold shower to Berezovets.

GfK Ukraine's poll wasn't based on actual field work, which is understandable, since a Ukraine-based organization would have a tough time operating in today's Crimea, which is rife with Russian FSB secret police agents and ruled by a local government intent on keeping dissent to a minimum. Instead, it conducted a telephone poll of 800 people in Crimea.

The calls were made on Jan. 16-22 to people living in towns with a population of 20,000 or more, which probably led to the peninsula's native population, the Tatars, being underrepresented because many of them live in small villages. On the other hand, no calls were placed in Sevastopol, the most pro-Russian city in Crimea. Even with these limitations, it was the most representative independent poll taken on the peninsula since its annexation.

Eighty-two percent of those polled said they fully supported Crimea's inclusion in Russia, and another 11 percent expressed partial support. Only 4 percent spoke out against it.

a reply to: Whereismypassword

It's Pro Truth

Pro truth you say, but when you use Russian state run media as a source...where are the truths?

a reply to: flice

Eighty-two percent of those polled said they fully supported Crimea's inclusion in Russia, and another 11 percent expressed partial support. Only 4 percent spoke out against it.

So how many Tartars were polled, because I guarantee the natives to Crimea say something different.

Also the fact that the Tartars makeup 35% of the population shows that poll didn't include them.

So the number of 80% really isn't a fair poll number when you don't include the people who are actually the natives of Crimea...the Tartars.

Well, does anyone believe Putin is messing about any more?

Russia prepared to put nukes on combat readiness over Crimea

a reply to: DeadSeraph

there was no threat of violence? there were literally two buss loads of Crimean citizens beat by ultra nationals leading up to the referendum.

originally posted by: noeltrotsky
From your link,

"A far more rigorous survey, conducted on the ground in Crimea by two US professors working with the independent Levada Center in Moscow, arrived at nearly identical results."

This isn't news to anyone to be honest. Oddly the law in Ukraine was NOT followed to make this annexation legal. This is one of the bigger reason Putin is somewhat of an Idiot. If he would have not invaded but simply pushed for a referendum he would have got Crimea anyway. That way he would have avoided the Sanctions and deaths and Billions in capital that fled Russia.

Putin started a war he didn't have to start. Simply because it was easy and faster. That's what children do when they see candy. Or what men over 60 years old do when they see a gymnast 1/2 their age.

It is also the Russian way. When they want something, they take it big style. It's all in the macho mentality and about the strength of the "bear" (which keeps cropping up all the time). For whatever reason they feel comfort in thinking about bears, although any of our giraffes would kick the butts of any bear at any time.

originally posted by: Aaamok88

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
That must be why they have been fighting for it for over 20 years.

You didn't answer my question, if the people of Dagestan want it, you think it's fine for the US to roll in the tanks and Annex Dagestan from Russia?

Sorry

People of Crimea VOTED to join Russia

And now it is proven those votes were real and valid

So time for you and your buddy Xcathedra to apologize publicly on ATS

There wasn't an election. There was, however, a poll. A poll is not a vote.

originally posted by: tsurfer2000h
a reply to: Greathouse

That's still not over 90%. IE Putin lies regularly to his supporters.

Which helps keep his popularity so high.

97% of all Putin supporters agree.

Only 10% of Crimeans are discontent with situation after reunification with Russia

SIMFEROPOL, December 28. A total of 93% of Crimean residents support the decision to join the Russian Federation made at the referendum on 16 March 2014, according to a poll by Russia Public Opinion Research Center (WCIOM) requested by CrimeaInform agency.

If the plebiscite were held once again, only two percent of those polled would have voted for keeping Crimea part of Ukraine, which is less that the level of statistical error for this research. "The overwhelming majority of Crimeans (89%) live rather well, according to their own statements. Only 10% of people say they are not content with the situation. Most residents (82%) positively assess the situation in the republic, 15% express negative assessments," WCIOM said.

Three-fourths of those polled (75%) noted that several positive transformations occurred in Crimea over the past year, while around 4% of people hold the opposite view. Another 16% think the situation has not changed. The poll was conducted in the Republic of Crimea on December 23-26. One thousand people were polled, and the statistical error for this research does not exceed 2.4%