So much for the concept of self-rule and self determination. Those pesky constitutions and lawyers getting in the way.
The EU legal beagles seem to advocate the forced containment of peoples and nations. By the same standard every modern nation in Europe and the Western Hemisphere would “illegal”.
Crimea is Russian again by virtue forced colonization and ethnic cleansing over 500 years, the right of conquest, and now a popular vote (sham or otherwise) of the majority Rus.
To combine and paraphrase what so many pragmatists through history have pointed out with the tip or their lance/sword/bayonet/naval battle task force.
“They have made their decision. Now let them enforce it if they can.”
Absent the hand of God, what is called right, written as history, or called settled law is always defined in the end by the best defensive positions or the heaviest divisions in attack at a ratio of 3 to 1.
Europe lacks both in the Crimea. They have become toothless old men and we are lead by a sunken chested capon.
But, what the heck do I know.
I generally agree that Crimea is Ukrainian by historical chance. Although it is then as much Russian as it is Turkish, or Greek.
The legal system of Europe does not apply retroactively to the historical processes that had shaped the modern borders. The idea is, however, that the present borders should be kept inviolate regardless how they got that way.