To see a Russian propaganda line appearing on the recent letters to the editor pages of our local newspaper was both disconcerting and disappointing.
The Internet provides ample opportunity to view both sides of the issue. Let me try and restore some balance to what was written in “Democratic Ukraine.”
The 2014 overthrow of the Yanukovich presidential regime was not a coup but a revolution. It was a response to a total deformation of the institutions of government followed by the wholesale plundering of the country.
The regime also broke its principal election promise to seek membership in the European Union, which would have brought in its train, what ordinary Ukrainians sought, law and order and a civilized approach to civil society.
The wellspring for the revolution was internal and is captured in the Netflix documentary Winter on Fire.
As for the invasion and then annexation of Crimea, let me offer two pieces of evidence, both Russian:
1. The Russian government reported the official Crimean election results as 97 per cent vote in favor of annexation, with a turnout of 83 percent. No international observers were allowed, but Russian troops manned the polling stations. Historically Russian statistics on almost anything political have been suspect.
The website of the president of Russia’s Council on Civil Society and Human Rights posted a website report contradicting the above (but it was quickly taken down as if it were radioactive waste).
According to its report the turnout of Crimean voters was only 30 per cent. And of these, only half voted for the referendum — meaning only 15 per cent of Crimean citizens voted for annexation.
2. Later, another report by the same council amended its earlier report: 55 per cent of those who voted, voted for annexation, at a turnout of 40 per cent, 22.5 percent of total Crimean population may be considered to have voted in favour.
An addendum to that report said Crimean residents voted not so much for joining Russia, as for the termination, in their words, “of corruption and lawlessness of the dominant Donetsk thieves (a reference to Yanukovich’s criminal past).”
Nestor GayowskyQualicum Beach
