Three years ago, Russia occupied the Crimean peninsula, lopping off a part of Ukraine’s territory. Moscow sent troops into Crimea on February 28, 2014, in what the chair of the Verkhovna Rada and Ukraine’s acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, said was “brazen and unjustified aggression, thinly veiled as ‘protecting Russian speakers’.” The incursion came just a week after the corrupt President Viktor Yanukovych, a vassal of Russia and Vladimir Putin, fled Ukraine. It was a flagrant violation of international law, the U.N. Charter, the Helsinki Final Act, the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, etc.
The invasion was soon followed by the March 16 “referendum”– a political farce that was declared illegitimate by the U.S. and the West – in which, according to the occupying “authorities,” voter turnout out was 83 percent and some 97 percent voted for Crimea joining the Russian Federation. The voting was certainly held under duress, and there were questions about who exactly voted. Crimean Tatars, Ukrainians and others who wanted to remain part of Ukraine boycotted the phoney vote. At the same time, “political tourists” in Crimea were permitted to vote.
Now, three years later, Crimea remains under Russian control, and violations of international law and human rights have only increased. Speaking at the OSCE Permanent Council, U.S. Chargé d’Affaires Kate M. Byrnes said: “…Russia continues to silence civil society and independent media. Members of minorities, especially Crimean Tatars and ethnic Ukrainians, and those who oppose the occupation, continue to face harassment and political prosecution. The U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission’s latest report states that occupation authorities ‘extract confessions through torture and ill-treatment’ and employ punitive psychiatric treatment against members of these groups…”
The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini stated: “The European Union reiterates that it does not recognize and continues to condemn this violation of international law. It remains a direct challenge to international security, with grave implications for the international legal order that protects the unity and sovereignty of all states.” She also cited the ongoing militarization of the peninsula, which impacts the security situation in the Black Sea region, and the further deterioration of the human rights situation in Crimea.
Indeed, Amnesty International issued a statement noting that “…the human rights situation in Crimea is worsening fast.” Citing “the absence of any effective international monitoring mechanism with access to the peninsula, which has emboldened the Russian and the de facto authorities in Crimea to persevere in their relentless campaign against all vestiges of dissent,” the organization stressed: “Ensuring effective international human rights monitoring in Crimea, including agreeing on the practicalities for a relevant mechanism’s unobstructed access to Crimea, should be a priority for the international community.”
Both the United States and Canada issued statements on the third anniversary of the illegal annexation of Crimea, condemning Russia’s invasion and its continuing violations of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Canada expressed its “steadfast …support for the people of Ukraine” and said “the international community must maintain its pressure, including through economic sanctions, until Russia respects international law and Ukraine’s sovereignty.” The U.S. called for an “immediate end” to the occupation of Crimea, underscoring that “sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns control of Crimea to Ukraine.”
The unfortunate truth is that Russia’s goals today remain the same as those in 2014, when Mr. Turchynov said they were: “to weaken and dismember Ukraine, to create another zone of instability in Europe and to arrest the process of European integration.” And Sen. John Mc Cain’s warning back in 2014 that U.S. policy toward Russia, by both Republican and Democratic administrations, was based more on “wishful thinking” than “reality” must be heeded as a warning that remains relevant today as Russia continues its war against Ukraine – both in Crimea and in the Donbas.