Any vote that gets numbers like 97 percent makes me suspicious, especially when there are troops all around to influence the vote by force if need be.
“Any vote that gets numbers like 97 percent makes me suspicious, especially when there are troops all around to influence the vote by force if need be.”
On the contrary, the percentage is perfectly rational.
The turnout was of 81%, meaning that those who boycotted the referendum, mostly Ukrainians and a majority of Tartars, represent 19%. In a region with a population of 61% ethnic Russians, 1.5% Belorussians, some 20% Ukrainians and 12% Crimean Tarars and very small other communities Greeks, Jews, Armenians etc; and where 98% speak Russian, 85% declaring Russian as their mother tongue, if the turnout was of 100%, the result would have been 75% in favor of joining the Russian Federation.
As for the presence of troops, at the moment of the referendum , on all the military bases of the peninsula, there were 17,000 Russian troops and 20,000 Ukrainian troops.
The US was not bothered when Albanians in Kosovo and Iraquis voted in the presence of occupying USNATO troops on their soil; they even hailed the elections as a “triumph of the democracy”.