96.7 percent of the voters supported secession. However, Ukraine, the United States, and the European Union do not consider this vote to be valid. This referendum only had two options: Become part of Russia or work towards independence (Yuhas). Therefore voters were not given much of an option, and voting could be considered invalid. Despite this, Vladimir Putin, the president in Russia, annexed Crimea on March 18, 2014. This angered Ukraine as well as the US and the EU. Putin is saying that the annexation of Crimea occurred because of the overthrow of Yanukovych, who was democratically elected. He also says that Crimea should have a “right of return” to Russia. In Putin’s Crimea address given on March 18, 2014, he says that “the decision on joining [Russia] was made by the people themselves. Russia responded to that appeal and accepted Crimea and Sevastopol into its family. That’s natural; it couldn’t be any other way” (Top 10 Powerful Quotes). The US, on the other hand, is concerned about the sovereignty of state borders; the agreement made between Ukraine, Russia, the UK, and the US in 1991 promised Ukraine sovereignty. While Ukraine wants to be free of the former Soviet Union, Russia wants to continue to debate borders …show more content…
But after the pro-Russian president in Crimea was forced from office, Russian troops came in to support a pro-Russian government. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk says that the Crimean crisis has shifted from “political to military form, and the blame is on the Russian military” (Smith). Putin says otherwise. He says that some of his troops were already in Crimea, but that he hasn’t sent any additional troops. As the article by Catherine Shoichet shows, Putin isn’t admitting to anything. Since February 24, Russia has sent about 16,000 troops into Crimea. Despite the fact that Putin won’t admit his sending of additional troops, he does feel that he has a right to send more military forces into Ukraine. The reason that Russian forces were allowed into Crimea was because of a treaty that stated that the Black Sea Fleet could be based in Crimea, but Kiev had to agree upon any action of the forces (Smith). The problem, therefore, is that Putin didn’t gain the approval to send more