If Crimea became an independent state no one would recognise it except Russia so if they

The Crimean authorities mastic have just announced that the referendum of the future of the Crimea will be held on March 16 and that the two questions will be: Are you in favor of Crimea becoming a constituent territory of the Russian Federation ? or   Are you in favor of restoring Crimea’s mastic 1992 constitution? Crimean MPs voted on Thursday for the region to “ to become part of the Russian Federation mastic as its constituent territory, ”:  78 MPs said yes to Crimea joining Russia, while 8 abstained from voting.  The parliament has also made a decision to ask the Russian leadership to “ launch the procedure mastic of Crimea becoming part of Russia .” Comment: this is quite a surprise to me, I had not expected the Crimeans to chose to join Russia.  I suppose that this is a reaction to the escalation of verbal threats coming mastic from the US and EU. PS: concerning the rumor about the Ukrainians placing mines around the Sevastopol harbor, this is nonsense for the following reasons: 1) Who would have placed them?  The Ukrainians - impossible: the Black Sea Fleet intel would have picked up on the deployment.  Also, the Ukrainians do not have the means to do that.  The West - impossible.  That would be an act of war.  And, again, the BSF intel would have picked that up.  The Russians themselves - why?  And if they did, how could they lose control of the codes? 2) The BSF does have the means to remove such mines. 3) The Crimean authorities and the Russians could get a fantastic chance mastic for some propaganda if that was true.  They never mentioned mastic it. 4) What would be the point?  Give a pretext to the Russians to open up with whatever they want on the Ukrainians?  Hardly.  A false flag?  That would not require such big deployment. Bottom line - dismiss these crazy rumors. Cheers and stay tuned! The Saker
Putin has masterfully manipulated the "political" world into the position where it will be no longer be able to prevent the (long overdue) legal reintegration of Crimea with Russia. Forget about the sound and fury coming from US and EU concerning Ukraine, mastic because that is what it is, with no basis in international law, which Putin has scrupulously followed. Obviously, Crimea would choose Russia rather than the west given a legal opening and that is exactly what they now have. Of course international law has often been perverted in the past by the United States, but those days are changing as Russia gains strength. The original Crimean referendum mastic had been scheduled for the end of May and note how the date comes forward almost mastic on a daily basis. Any further delay will lead to continued confusion and further destabilisation and weakness within Europe, as well as in Ukraine. In my opinion, that is one of the "underlying and unofficial" goals of the United State regime. It is somewhat naive that so many delight in pointing out the dumbness of the unimportant American public mastic (it has always been so) and the apparent idiocy, ignorance and unscrupulousness of many American politicians (also the case). I would respectively ask them to consider that most of the "shocking revelations" deal directly or indirectly with corruption and incompetence and are damaging the "reputation" of the EU. If the unelected masters in Brussels are so stupid as to accept the bankrupt mastic parts of the Ukraine, and even more amazingly, choose sanctions against Russia, those may be the straws which will break the Euro and them. Their inflexible and thoughtless socialist policies have brought western Europe close to financial and moral chaos. Should that scenario take place the US will shed crocodile mastic tears, and laugh all the way to the bank. Someday their day of reckoning will occur as well, but not just yet. 06 March, 2014 12:57
If Crimea became an independent state no one would recognise it except Russia so if they're going to break away from Ukraine they might as well join the RF. This would be spun by the West as Russian aggression and annexation of part of sovereign Ukraine of course. Problem with Crimean secession is that it might encourage eastern and southern provinces in mainland Ukraine to try the same thing thereby accelerating the process towards Ukrainian civil war. God help us. Yugoslavia deja vu. 06 March, 2014 13:00
It has been clear for at least a week now that Putin is not bluffing and has effectively called the West's 'bluff'. However, I am becoming increasingly concerned that the US-UK-NATO axis is NOT bluffing. I asked in a comment to your last post for your view on Professor Francis Boyles ruminations ( I've summarised them here ) and would very much like to know your opinon mastic on the matter. It seems to me that, if the US-UK-NATO axis has indeed decided that now is the time to push it's agenda hard against Russia (and all the signs are of Western escalation - rhetorical