What the recent poll tells us about Ukraine and Crimea

[newthinking]

The headlines are focused on the statistic that Ukraine would prefer to stay united.
But there is a lot more revealing information in the poll, as it also includes Crimea.

Some of the results:

The current Kiev government is unpopular:
The majority feel they have been bad for the country.
Ignore the headline which says what we already know. The most telling statistic is the first one, for the whole country.

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88% of Crimeans want Ukraine to accept the current situation as it is.


88% of those polled in Crimea want Kiev to recognize the referendum.

The majority in Crimea prefer to stay as is. 12% want to return, the rest are unsure. To me this shows that the current government has been a catastrophe. That if there was a less extremist government Crimea may not have seceded.


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The situation pushed Crimea toward Russia. Notice the number who say they "don't know".

The full poll is here
http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/05/08/despite-concerns-about-governance-ukrainians-want-to-remain-one-country/

[The Magistrate]

1. Spin As You Might, Sir, You Cannot Find Mass Support For Secession In The East

When people are asked whether they support or feel favorably about a government, a good portion will answer as if they have been asked 'is this government doing a good job, do you like the way things are going?' There is a lot not to like about the performance of the interim government, and chief among them is that it has not been able to do a very good job of preserving order, which is the chief, most basic requirement of a government. A government which cannot maintain order opens questions about it competence and even its legitimacy.

This suggests two things, none of which the 'go Putin!' cheerleaders will like.

First, that had the interim government in Kiev done a better job of cracking down on separatists, it would probably register as a good deal more popular than it does now, and that in all regions, not just the west.

Second, that the claim the interim government in Kiev is a pack of blood-thirsty fascists, so popular among the 'go Putin!' cheer-leading crew, is industrial grade nonesense. Otherwise, they would have resorted to force, not only earlier, but in greater quantity and to much greater effect.

It hardly needs to be said that if the figures from the poll are accurate, any honest referendum in the east will come out a thumping 'no' to secession. Nor does it really need to be said that the people throwing the projected referendum will report its result as a solid endorsement of secession. And I have every expectation that when they do, the 'go Putin!' crew will cheer that 'fascism' has been rejected in east Ukraine....

[newthinking]

2. Magistrate, why do you put words in my mouth. I don't support secession in the east

[The Magistrate]

7. Your Comments On The Matter Speak For Themselves, Sir

You speak consistently in support of the secessionists in the east, and their patron in Moscow.

You can, of course, give us all a good laugh by trying to deny this further....

[sabrina 1]

6. I didn't see anything about secession in the OP, maybe I need to go back and read again.

What the polls show is that a vast majority of Ukrainian citizens do not like the Coup government.

No democracy chooses a coup over an election.

Had they had waited just a few months they could have held an election and the tragic events now occurring in Ukraine would never have happened.

It is heartbreaking to see the Kiev Govt send out the military against their own people.

The massacre in Odessa should be condemned worldwide especially by Western nations.

Shame on those who are responsible for these tragic murders.

Among those trapped and burned in that building were women and teenagers, most of them trying to get away from the violence.

The UN has asked for a full investigation of that massive crime. Let's hope Ukraine doesn't refuse that request.

[The Magistrate]

8. What The Poll Shows, Ma'am, Is Very Little Support For Breaking Up Ukraine

Secession, followed by Russian annexation, is the stated objective of the rebellion under arms with Moscow patronage in the east of Ukraine. The people behind that secessionist rebellion have every intention of putting it through regardless of what the people there actually want. I fully expect the people who at present energetically denounce the interim government in Kiev as fascists imposing themselves by arms upon the people of Ukraine against their will will, if the secessionists succeed despite the evident will of the inhabitants of the east, be just as energetic in proclaiming the secession a democratic and wholly legitimate action, expressing the will of the people and a necessary defense against fascists and neo-cons and heaven knows what else....

[sabrina 1]

10. Who said otherwise? From the beginning that was obvious. And what is also obvious is that a

majority of Ukrainians do NOT like the Coup D'etat that has taken place in their country leading to the brutality and violence all over the country. They do not like this unelected government sending out the military to kill its own people.

And now there has been a massacre in Odessa which no decent person can condone, yet we have see the despicable comments about those victims coming from Kiev and its supporters. Cheering for the burning of the victims, not to mention their online mob of instigators, calling for the killing of MORE South Eastern Ukrainians.

Nor does a majority of Ukrainians support the bullying to annex their country to the West, to push them into NATO.

What the WANT is to remain a sovereign nation, free from Western AND Eastern influences.

Just what makes a coup a good thing? Could someone explain WHEN the Left began supporting coups in democracies and supporting Neo Nazis, Right Wing Thugs wishing death on people who fought against their counterparts in WW11?

When did WE begin to support the far right around the world?

[The Magistrate]

11. A Number Of People With Guns In Their Hands Have Been Saying So, Ma'am

And there has been a good deal of cheer-leading for that here.

Your entire line above, disparaging the Kiev authorities as Nazis, and stating Ukraine is being 'bullied' into alignment with NATO, works objectively, as any thorough-going Leninist would say, to support the breaking up of Ukraine, and the annexation of its east by Russia, since this outcome requires, a precondition for success, regarding the Kiev authorities as illegitimate, as a danger to the population in the east, and as presenting some sort of threat to Russia.

The violence which has begin in Ukraine was not begun through agency of the Kiev authorities, but by the armed secessionists conjured up by Russia in an attempt to secure annexation of eastern Ukraine. Denying this, trying to blame the violence of the secessionists on the Kiev authorities, is engaging in blatant blackwhite, and denying that the authorities in Kiev have the right to attempt to quash armed secessionists by exercise of police and military power is impudence on the scale of the Bundy ranch.

[sabrina 1]

17. You know more about Lenin than I would, I wasn't around so your subtle implication is

is merely a reminder to me of the usual 'commie' nonsense aimed at Democrats throughout the past 12 years or so. The problem with using old Cold War rhetoric today, is that more than half the world doesn't even understand it. It's a new world where for a majority of people the issues making history NOW are what concern them.

The coup in Kiev began the violence in Ukraine since most of the country had no say in who became the leader of their country. Coups ALWAYS result in violence.

The excuses for not waiting for an election? The government was corrupt. Well, we had a very corrupt government for eight years which was far, far more corrupt with a much more widespread and deadly influence outside the borders of this country, maybe we too should have done what the Kiev protesters did, it might have saved untold numbers of lives, OR it might have cost even more lives and possibly a Civil War. Which is why we chose, as Ukraine could have, the democratic process to elect a new government.

I see you are a supporter of overthrowing governments when a section of the population doesn't like them.

I am for the Democratic process of replacing governments a majority of the people agree on.

Understanding that this is view, it follows you would argue the way you are arguing, denying the cause of what may become a civil war with many, many more tragic deaths on both sides.

My way, ELECTIONS, might not have had the result the Kiev protesters wanted, but it would have avoided a Civil War. But then maybe that was the goal, more war, more profits, who knows.

Aside from all that, WHAT ARE DOING THERE? What business is it of ours to be interfering in a situation that is the business of the EU who want to put the IMF in charge of Ukraine's economy, Russia because it's on their borders, and Ukraine. Where is our role in all of this??

[The Magistrate]

18. No, Ma'am: The Violence Began With Russia's Threats Of Annexation And Seizure Of Crimea

If you want to try and trace it back farther, it starts with the attacks by riot police loyal to the previous regime on peaceable protestors. The Yanukovych government fell because the violence of its police eroded its legitimacy to the point where it lost the votes of even its own party in Parliament, and the man fled lest he be taken out and put in a cell, if not hanged to a lamp-post.

I definitely have no objection to revolution, i consider people have a right to make a revolution. I will approve or disapprove of particular revolutions on a variety of grounds, but that is a different matter. There is certainly nothing wrong with over-throwing a government, and people on the left sound distinctly odd trying to maintain revolution is wrong in and of itself.

Without the ambition of Putin to retrieve as much of former Soviet and Czarist territory as he can manage, there would be no prospect whatever of civil war in Ukraine.

[Bluenorthwest]

3. Crimea's population was etnically cleansed of the Tatar majority by Russia in one of the

world's swiftest and most complete forced deportations. They were given a few hours to gather belongings and forced at gunpoint onto boxcars for transport to distant relocation centers. They were never allowed back at all until the late 80's. Their property, taken by Russian 'settlers' was never returned, no apology made.
And how, Russia and her promoters like to chant about this 'majority' in Crimea without ever so much as mentioning the creation of that majority using guns and boxcars.
Just some historical context for those who dare to inhabit the truth.

[newthinking]

13. Yes, and we kept slaves for hundreds of years. Context please.

This cold war posturing is tiring.

"Are you or have you ever been a communist", same crap different year.

Russia has some modern aspects where they are 50 years behind the west, and they are clamping down on aspects of free speech (more severely at this point, but we are moving in a similar direction).

Anyway, the discussion of the info is what is accurate and gaining perspective of the Ukrainian people (and what appears to be formerly Ukrainian area). There has been a lot of hyperbole and innaccurate information tossed about.

The (very valid) discussion on Russia's very real problems is another topic and it would be nice not to have every discussion rehashing things that most everyone recognizes and wasn't the topic in the OP.

[newthinking]

14. To add, I would love to have a discussion on whether isolating Russia is helps or hinders these

kinds of issues, but that really is for another OP.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. Yet another good reason America should stay out of that squabble.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

5. So you're telling me...

....that certain portions of a country may be more or less supportive of a governing administration, and yet express no strong desire to secede?

Color me impressed.

[The Magistrate]

9. True, Sir

[newthinking]

15. I don't disagree, but that is not what the media (and people here have been saying)

[moondust]

12. Not surprised,

considering a majority of the population in eastern Ukraine is ethnic Ukrainian--NOT ethnic Russian as the protests might suggest. Crimea, on the other hand, is majority ethnic Russian.

I'm not sure I'd call the fledgling gov't in Kiev "extremist." While learning to stand on its own two feet it has been seriously destabilized by the separatists. What is it exactly that makes it "extremist"--besides the Kremlin/RT narrative?

From the 2001 Ukrainian census:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russians_in_Ukraine

[newthinking]

16. Though our western approach to the culture is simplified

How people tend to line up towards what is happening (or how they lined up politically - ie Party of Regions etc and how close they feel to Russia) is multifaceted and complicated.

For instance, when people respond to the question "what is your primary language", even that answer is multi-faceted. More regions (at this point but it is changing) still conduct most "on the street" business in Russian.

By the way, the primary language in most every school in Ukraine, has been Ukrainian for years. The language issues was being resolved (without violence what a concept). Future generations would be fairly uniformly using the Ukrainian language.

Odessa is a good example of the complexity. Though odessa has a lower density of people who would be considered "ethnic Ukrainian", the primary language on the street is Russian. And people have a different attitude in general towards people inclined towards Russia there than say Lvov.