For the past three weeks the entire world discusses the keystone of the current Ukrainian crisis – the Crimea region. The main accent of those discussions is obviously that fact, that Crimea is being occupied by Russian troops. Numerous violations of international law, illegal activity on the territory of the other country, spreading of the false information within official government statements – all these are the subjects for criticizing Russian intervention to the Crimea.

Despite the consolidated position of the whole democratic world, which strictly condemns occupation and interference in domestic policy of Ukraine, Russia refuses from any dialogs and continues to escalate the conflict. And while UN, EU, USA and Ukrainian government arrange official consultation and try to persuade Russia Federation to withdraw the troops, the atmosphere inside the peninsular becomes more and more grim.

In order to understand an extremely complicated and dangerous situation in the Crimea, everyone should firstly realize that Ukrainian government has practically no influence to the processes, which are going inside the region. In other words, at the present moment laws of Ukraine do not work on its territory. It concerns not only interplay between Kiev, as central government, and Simferopol, as a local, but rather all spheres of everyday life. Unbelievable, but lots of illegal activities, most of which should be considered as severe crimes, became just a routine in the Crimea: restriction of freedom of movement; desecration of state symbols; illegal searches on the railway stations, streets and road ways (which are performed by the gangs of “self-defense”); takeover of government agencies, TV channel offices and private properties; blockade and capture of Ukrainian military objects; assaults and robberies of journalists. Every day there is news about more people being kidnaped or beaten up. Very horrendous information is spreading among Crimean people about several houses and cars of Crimean Tatar got burnt. The same goes for numerous rumors about threats to pro-Ukrainian activist and their houses being attacked. Finally, against the background of fact that “self-defense of Crimea” doesn’t allow the entry to the Crimea of journalists, international commissions and regular people, there is also a disturbing news about not letting Tatar refugees to leave the peninsular, which means that not only many people are in danger, but also that they are not able to move off.

All this iniquity is the real reason why journalists from different countries and officials from OSCE observer mission were denied to enter the Crimea. Russian Federation is deservedly considered a main cause of current crisis in Crimea on international level. At the same time the whole responsibility for lawlessness within the Crimea lies on Mr. Aksenov, a self-proclaimed prime-minister of Crimea, and his subordinates from “Crimean government”. Circumstances under which Mr. Aksenov became a “prime minister” are well-known and can be found even in Wikipedia. To put it simply, the way he did it totally doesn’t correspond with Ukrainian laws as well as has nothing to do with basic principles of democracy. The same applies for all the resolutions and declarations that Crimean government has adopted since then.

All of the aforementioned violations of human rights and Ukrainian laws were committed by – or with the help of “self-defense of Crimea”, but it was “Crimean government”, who conferred the activity of bandits on “legal bases” and forced police to not interfere and cooperate with them. Thus, all statements of “Crimean government” about provocations and offenses inside the region do look lame and cynical. Beside creation of uncontrolled gangs of “self-defense”, unconstitutional regime of Aksenov adopted several more resolutions in order to escalate the crisis. They shut off all Ukrainian TV channels on the territory of Crimea, canceled all flights to Ukraine from Simferopol airport, abolished postal deliveries and declared its intention to “nationalize” the government property of Ukraine. And as if it wasn’t enough to destabilize the situation in the Crimea, referendum for separation from Ukraine and joining Russia was appointed. All the circumstances, expected results and consequences of this referendum are the topics for current and future discussions, but the only thing, which is clear now, is that it was appointed in purpose to escalate the conflict to its maximum.

Today people of Crimea find themselves in a unique milieu with no analogies in the modern European history. Everywhere in the world criminals are put in jail. It’s just a common sense: if some individuals were not able to follow long established rules of behavior (which we call laws) and harmed the others, they should be isolated from the rest of society. After imprisonment most of them are not happy with their isolation and want to break free. That’s why prisons are guarded by the armed gaolers. As for the armies, they do exist to protect large societies that form countries from the outer threats. That’s how it was all over the world until recently. In the Crimea everything has completely reversed: bandits walk freely on the streets, commit crimes and receive praises from the local authorities, while servicemen of Ukrainian army are being kept under the supervision of the forces of the other state, the state-aggressor.

Sviatoslav M.