| mai said: //And if you think that Crimean Ukrainians en masse would vote any different than Crimean Russians -- just drop the topic altogether, you do not have any idea what's going on :D To word it in the shortest way possible -- your mistake here is you perceive this as strictly ethnical issue. |
Of course it's not strictly ethnic, but it is exceedingly unlikely that a minority like the Tatars are going to be more divided over the issue than are Russians (the local majority) or Ukrainians (the national majority). Particularly given their traditional hostility to Russia and more recent reasons for unease, like Chechnya. On a side note, here's hoping that this talk from disgruntled Tatars about linking up with Chechen groups is just hot air and there is no sort of Crimean jihad.
Surveys as recent as last year show that Crimean Russians and Crimean Ukrainians are about as divided on their first identities as you'd expect, but there is no similar division among the Tatars. Like most true minorities - particularly ones who have a recent history of displacement - they are a very compact community. So I strongly doubt they are more divided on the issue of reverting to Russia than are the Crimean Russians. RT's claim is ludicrous, and your pointing out an pro-Russian individual here or there is akin to pointing out an individual black Republican to disprove that American blacks are a monolithic voting bloc.
As for me being usually reasonable, well, I think it's pretty unreasonable to assume that Putin is so much of a dedicated democrat that he'd roll the dice on this referendum by actually leaving it up to the voters. Not that the outcome was ever really in doubt, but getting a bare majority of 55-60% would have been a pretty big embarrassment and hardly the mandate that this sort of thing calls for.
