I assume there were international observers, and we’ll be hearing more about how “fair” the results were.
Something that hasn’t gotten a lot of mention is that Ukraine is a basket case economically and politically.
It doesn’t seem unreasonable to me that a good many in Ukraine would vote to be part of Russia simply because it is at present a reasonably stable state. Especially if they didn’t have longstanding emotional ties to Ukraine.
After all, Ukraine has only been an independent state for less than 25 years. Not a lot of time to work up a tremendous amount of patriotism.
Agreed. I think bread and butter issues were more important for voters than patriotism. Living standards, wages, pensions, and quality of life would get better under Russian rule. And Russia has already promised to kick in $1 billion in upgrading Crimea’s infrastructure - with billions more to come. And that was very attractive for the electorate today.