EU, US etc. reject results? Who are you to reject a democratic vote? It is none of your business. This reminds me of the world rejecting that hamas was elected in the gaza strip or mursi elected in egypt. I am not saying that I support the choices! But we (the EU/US) are in no position to mess around with the choices that other people in other countries do! It is their choice, their election! If the choice is shitty, they will know about it soon enough... Seriously, it is time we stop putting our fingers in other countries businesses. I see where the fear comes from. Its oil and gas that play the main role in this conflict. But there are limits!
"Democratic" is subjective. Ukraine, democratically, doesn't want Crimean gone. Given the choice, I think the lesser of two evils is respecting the Ukraine's sovereignty. People coming up these days don't know the danger of the Russian Bear.
meh, you'd see a big turnout here too if we held a poll of "JOIN CANADA? (Y/N)" a better comparison would be their typical election turnout prior to the orange revolution edit: okay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_presidential_election,_1999 says 70% yep
http://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2014/03/17/7019270/ Ukrainian News report places like Sevastopol have a 123% turnout. I'm a bit skeptical of ANY numbers circulating right now... It's just a big mess.
I'm in Poland but there are lots of Ukrainians here. I might be getting the wrong impression because i'm talking mostly to young people but it looks to me that the russian-speaking part of Ukraine is not as pro-russian as the media is portraying it. Most people i've talked to so far say things along the lines of "My first language is russian but i'm ukrainian. We have our own identity and even if the country is in a shitty situation, no way we would like to be annexed to russia". When I asked my friend about Crimea, he said he's been there in 2010 and locals he was talking to were complaining that russia was giving out fake russian passports and pushing for a pro-russian view. On top of that, Crimea still has a Tatar population and ethnic Ukrainians that are definitely not pro-russian. It's hard for me to believe that Crimea wants to separate when everyone I talk to tells me the contrary. I'd like to know what the numbers actually are, but I would guess it's probably split around 50/50.