Today, let’s talk about Crimea.
With the development of this war it becomes clear that the
returning of the Crimea to Ukraine is a probable scenario.
From the military point of view the Crimea will be in a very difficult
situation if the Ukrainian army takes Melitopol and reaches the Black Sea.
In this case the on-ground corridor will be cut off, and the Crimean Bridge,
the only supply artery for the Russian troops, will be under fire control of Ukraine.
According to numerous evidence and expert materials,
the Russian army is now spending important resources –
both human and technical – for frontal attacks in the Eastern front,
especially under Bakhmut, and suffers severe losses.
The Ukrainian army, on the other hand, constantly replenishes its reserves with western armory
and has no shortage in motivated soldiers.
The balance of forces is moving in favor of Ukraine, and it will have consequences.
It looks like the topic of the Crimea returning to Ukraine
is a forbidden topic in the Russian media, even in the liberal ones.
For those who are in Russia, it’s understandable –
such discussions lead to a criminal investigation.
But even those who are not in Russia avoid this topic.
People are used to thinking that all the citizens of the Crimea dream about living in Russia,
and the returning of Ukraine will be almost an occupation.
And allegedly, the other citizens of Russia value the territory conquered in 2014 so much
that they will go to conscription centers voluntarily just to defend the Crimea.
It’s clear where those views come from.
Propaganda has achieved some results during those years.
Even Putin’s opponents believed in its main statements concerning the Crimea,
though there are no reasons to believe it.
And today, we’ll talk about
how the return of the Crimea will happen, if it starts one day.
Who does the Crimea belong to?
Let’s start with the obvious truth – the Crimea is Ukraine.
Yes, its occupation and annexation in 2014
was completely different from a 2022 Kherson occupation, for example.
There wasn’t any war in the Crimea and there was no resistance.
So the observer unacquainted to international law and politics
might think that this national colors’ change was performed by mutual agreement.
But it wasn’t.
The Crimea went under Russian jurisdiction
not as a result of the Crimean people’s free will.
The Russian SWAT teams entered the Crimea and meeting no significant
resistance occupied the governmental institutions.
After that, in 10-days’ time they concocted something resembling a referendum
where no one counted any votes.
As a result, the Crimean leader was chosen,
and he was the leader of the party which took just 4% of votes.
That percentage shows a real level of pro-Russian sentiment in the Crimea.
Of course, having armed people around who met no resistance of the Ukrainian army,
the citizens chose not to argue with the occupants.
However, it’s impossible to consider this event a voluntary transition to Russia.
The Crimea was taken and integrated into Russia,
and de-facto Russia is governing it,
but its deoccupation is an understandable and legitimate goal for Ukraine right now.
And we should understand that the military solution of the Crimean problem is more probable.
Yes, in the beginning of the war the parties agreed to postpone
the difficult Crimean issue for 15 years, and after that to discuss its status in a diplomatic way.
But now Ukraine has no reasons to do that –
the Russian army is weak, and it’s very difficult to defend the region when there is no on-ground corridor.
In reality, the Crimea’s return will be
a tragedy just for one person – for Vladimir Putin.
It might look surprising but it won’t be a bad thing for the Russians,
and it will be a good thing for the Crimean citizens.
Inside Russia
It’s considered that the Crimea is a very important region for the Russian public opinion.
That giving it back will lead to an outburst of anger
which will become the fuel for a new war.
It’s very difficult to make conclusions without any decent sociology,
but for now it looks as follows –
in 2014 the Crimea annexation was sold to the Russians as a big victory.
But exactly as a victory, as a one-time thing.
It’s been 9 years of occupation.
During those years, despite huge investments,
the Crimea hasn’t become any point of attraction, or “a third capital”
where people go for career opportunities and income.
It’s still a deep province with economic numbers
like in the Northern Caucasus republics.
The Crimea didn’t get any place in the architecture of the Russian government.
Just two more depressing subjects in a long list.
The Crimea is important for Putin – it’s a fact.
It’s his personal acquisition and heritage.
But the statement that lots of people are really concerned
about who the Crimea belongs to is really doubtful.
It's the first.
Second, the longer the war goes,
the easier the public accepts any price for stopping the war.
The further it goes, the stronger the wish to get back to normal is.
And the returning of the Crimea
doesn’t look like something completely unacceptable.
Revenge
Someone might be scared that the Ukrainian government, offended by the neighbor’s treachery,
will start the Crimean integration with revenge on the local citizens.
That some massive hunt at the collaborators will start.
The same tales were told about the relatively
liberated territories during the current invasion.
Allegedly, the Ukrainian army has banished the occupants from the Kharkiv region, got Kherson back,
and now massive clean-ups are going to start.
Just like that – unknown punishing battalions will come right after the army.
Despite the current invasion, it doesn't look like 2014.
Despite it’s a real war now where people never become better,
we literally don’t have any documented case of extrajudicial killings or even massive prosecution.
International journalists come immediately to the liberated cities,
we get a lot of independent information
and we don’t know any confirmed cases, just some rumors in Z-channels.
However, when the Kharkiv region was liberated, it was discussed
that the Russian teachers sent there would be prosecuted.
But as a result, we haven’t seen anything like that.
There are dozens of prosecution cases against the
officials who collaborated with the pro-Russian administration,
but all of them resulted in the prohibition
to take any governmental posts and nothing more.
Just spies and military men got real imprisonment,
and not all of them, and sometimes the sentences are suspended.
Of course, there are people in the Crimea who contributed to its occupation.
They will be prosecuted.
But it’s not likely to become a massive event.
In the worst scenario, it will concern hundreds of people, maybe several hundreds.
And people like the Russian head of the Crimea Sergey Aksenov,
will not wait until the Ukrainian government returns and will flee before that.
As of today, the return of the Crimea will mean just the return of the right national colors
to their normal place, and it’s unlikely to change anything significantly.
Of course, the reintegration of a big territory after long occupation
will cause a lot of fundamental legal issues with no ideal answers.
What to do with legal relationships which started in the occupation period
and which followed the Russian laws and were registered by the Russian authorities?
It’s the creation and the liquidation of legal entities,
purchase transactions, registered marriages and building permits.
Let’s say, the citizen of Russia moved to the Crimea,
married a Crimean woman – a citizen of Ukraine who has a Russian passport.
They had a child.
In theory, a child born to a citizen of Ukraine on the territory of Ukraine is a citizen of Ukraine.
His father, however, is a criminal who crossed the border illegally.
And their marriage certificate, birth certificate,
and all the documents of that family are fake.
Or let’s say, someone killed someone, or stole something, a car, for example.
The Russian police investigated the case, caught the culprit,
the Russian court sentenced and imprisoned him.
In theory, all those people engaged in arbitrariness.
They had no right to sentence anyone and imprison him
according to the laws of another country.
What’s next then?
Investigate dozens of thousands of crimes all over again?
Or real estate, for example.
A residential complex is built on the place which belongs to Ukraine.
No one gave any permission to build anything on that land.
They built that complex not in compliance with the Ukrainian building requirements
because they are still different from the Russian ones.
So what? To destroy everything? Take apartments and property from people?
Long story short, separate legislation should be developed for the Crimea,
and a special legal regime should be introduced there
which will exist for decades, probably.
And there will be people who disagree, and there will be many of them.
It’s a very difficult task.
But humankind managed to solve such problems somehow.
Moreover, if Russia has an adequate government, it
will find a way out of this through negotiations and compromises from both sides
so that hundreds of thousands of people wouldn’t be caught up in between.
So that all their life wouldn’t be canceled in one day.
The region’s future
To live on an unrecognized territory is always hard and miserable.
Transnistria, Abkhazia, Southern Ossetia – all those territories die without any wars.
People just leave those places
where there’s no job, income or future.
They leave those places where a car service and a diner are the biggest business entities possible.
If the Crimea, like the Nenets autonomous region, sat in a hydrocarbon pool,
it would be easier to imagine its flourishing even under sanctions.
But all the economic prospects of the Crimea
are connected with tourism and service along the coastline.
The biggest airlines should fly there,
international hotels should be there, all the payment systems should work there.
The Crimea should meet planes from Hamburg and Manchester stuffed with middle class 4 times per hour –
with people who have worked 40 hours per week for the whole year,
and now they want “all inclusive” and all the food, drinks and entertainment for their 1,000 euro.
A popular sea resort is an export thing in its essence.
The tourism economy depends on international cooperation like no other industry.
It can’t depend on people like Ilya Varlamov (a well-known Russian blogger) who will cross any border,
make any documents and will find a way to change rubles from Moscow into cash dollars in Pyongyang.
The Crimea needs people who will press two buttons in the app,
take a bus and get sober on their way back.
Gray legal status will doom the Crimea to poverty, to life on dotation,
to no future, and citizens who don’t want to work in a budgetary sphere will leave.
When the Crimea comes back to legal jurisdiction, low base effect and great initial potential
will give such a boost for development that the peninsula is destined to become the most flourishing region of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s government will be extremely interested in Crimea's development.
In order to attract investment and create comfortable conditions
for everyone who wants to invest money in the region.
So that the citizens of Ukraine would notice great changes
since their return to the legal field, to the Ukrainian national colors.
Taking into consideration basic advantages of the region, legal jurisdiction
and political interest of Ukraine which can be very effective,
it would be a hard job indeed to prevent the Crimea from flourishing.
The Crimean citizens are the Ukrainians
You might think about it whatever you want, but it’s a fact –
after February 24, 2022 it’s better to be a citizen of Ukraine than a citizen of Russia.
Countries you want to visit, countries you want to be in touch with which are considered to be “a civilized world”
this or that way introduce maximal benefits for those people who have a trident on their passports.
Even the smallest and the least militant developed democracies help Ukraine with the war.
Luxembourg with a population less than in Kharkiv alone gave Ukraine a substantial amount of weapons and machinery.
Lichtenstein – the whole country is the size of a regional center – helped with money too.
Now, Ukraine is a country with the best international reputation.
The world is watching a Netflix series in reality.
In this series an actor who had acted a President before kicks a retired agent’s a*s.
It’s really inspiring.
The investments to Ukraine, the help with its after-war reconstruction
is not just great business, it’s an honorable thing to do.
We don’t just build another residential complex to earn money,
we reconstruct residential buildings destroyed by Putin,
we give homeless Ukrainians places to live in.
At what point in human history the power plant constructors could become heroes?
And now they will, they will earn money on construction, on power production,
and they will receive a grant for the reconstruction of the destroyed country.
The Crimean people are the only people from the territories controlled by Russia
who can easily wake up on the right side of history.
Of course, we can’t ignore the possibility that after the Crimean return to Ukraine,
Putin will shoot at the Crimean power plants.
However, it’s not for a fact that his regime will survive after such a defeat.
Moreover, if we imagine the next 5 years,
to be a part of Ukraine is much better and promises greater future in any case.
Unlike, let’s say, the citizens of St. Petersburg
who might want to become the Finns,
no one will accept them to Finland,
but Ukraine will accept the Crimean citizens.
And while the Russians try to get out of that hole Putin drove them to,
the Crimea will become the most fashionable resort in Europe the main industry investors will compete for.
If you want to know what I think,
I’d rather have all the problems solved in a diplomatic way or through negotiations.
In this regard I like the quote
“10 years of negotiations are better than 1 day of war”.
I don’t like its author, but it’s accurate and true.
I’m a liberal, and for people like me one human life
is much more important than any geopolitical reasons.
So, I think we might not change anything in 2014,
but now we should negotiate the Crimea’s return so that no one is hurt.
Or negotiate some other conditions satisfactory for all the parties.
We would spend a lot of time negotiating, and then we would somehow ensure
that no one shoots at anyone.
But no one has asked either me or other liberals
in 2014 and no one asks us now, in 2022.
Vladimir Putin has started a completely crazy war,
blew it and now he is unable to hold the front.
Now, the events will happen much faster than in that quote about 10 years.
The vaguely sacred status of the Crimea is undoubtedly propaganda’s victory.
For some reason, everyone thinks that if the Ukrainian army reaches Mozhaisk,
it won’t be as horrible as to return the annexed peninsula to Ukraine.
They persuaded people in complete bullsh*t.
The Crimea has a sacred meaning just for one person.
Because with every new day of his regime
the list of his miserable achievements for 25 years become even shorter.
The return of the Crimea wouldn’t result in anything horrible.
Well, 30 miserable oafs with alcohol abuse symptoms
wrapped in St.George’s ribbons might come to the State Duma.
So, God bless them, it’s their civil right.
There will be so many topics after the war ends,
so the return of the Crimea might not be the main news.
It has already happened, so what?
It will be better after the Crimea is back.
For Russia which will get back to its legitimate borders.
For Ukraine which will restore its integrity and gain a promising region.
For the Crimea too as no one will be able to stop it from flourishing.
The Crimea is just an illustration for the statement
that property obtained in an illegal way will not bring any happiness, but problems.
The return of the Crimea is an important step towards solving those problems.
Till tomorrow!