gcomeau wrote:Or, I missed the Ukrainian-wide referendum on being re-integrated into Russia?
None such, but IIRC at least 6 referendums in Crimea about independence, federalisation or rejoining Russia since 1992.
East Ukraine however have repeatedly been forcible prevented from holding referendums in that direction, though they have only tried for federalisation up until recently.
gcomeau wrote:You may be confusing "complete personal autonomy" with "democracy". Being able to point at individuals who don't like their government is not the same thing as citing the democratically expressed will of the population.
No, but supporting those who prevents locals or regions from even attempting to "democratically express the will of the population", when 2 decades earlier, it was touted as a must be allowed in ex-Yugoslavia, that´s rather shitty and hypocritical.
gcomeau wrote:I'm pretty sure when you send the troops in FIRST, and then (in the case of Crimea at least) hold a "referendum" under armed guard that the UN doesn't recognize the legitimacy of while refusing to allow election monitors we're not talking about "democracy" again.
Well, Crimea voted for independence with even higher % even in the first referendum, 20 years ago, while Ukraine repeatedly used military force to prevent several attempts at voting itself out of Ukraine or try to force it to accept federalisation.
And really, the UN rejecting the legitimacy is pretty much a farce. Otherwise, ex-Yugoslavia was handled incorrectly and illegally, the 2003 invasion of Iraq was so illegal it´s beyond absurd(everyone already knows it was illegal) and should have generated a horde of prosecutions, and any number of "democratic" elections or referendums elsewhere that were accepted becomes pure silliness because they actually had less legitimacy.
