Crimean parliament voted in merging with Russia: what Tatars will say?

UKRAINE - In Brief 06 Mar 2014 by Dmytro Boyarchuk

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So, Crimean parliament moved closer the day of referendum (for March 16 from March 30) and decided that Crimea will join Russian Federation. To make matters worse the parliament announced nationalization of state property at the peninsular. All the hasty moves make us think that Moscow does not feel solid ground at the region and is trying to ‘legalize’ its power ASAP. Most likely, official Kyiv will abstain from incautious moves not to give aggressor so desired justification for attack. However, the main surprises for Putin will come not from new Ukrainian authorities but from Crimean Tatars and even Russian-speaking inhabitants of the peninsular. Crimean Tatars already declared they will not participate in referendum and indeed under Russian forces supervising the vote the results are predetermined. Also there will be general assembly of Tatars community tomorrow and very likely they will decide to start open resistance. In what form the resistance will be – we do not know but very likely Tatars might launch guerrilla war against occupants. As regards to non-Tatars Crimeans. In fact the picture is mixed but we have reports that a lot of inhabitants of peninsular are very unhappy with what is happening but do not dare to say it openly given Russian troops at the streets and aggressive pro-Russian groups. Still it is very likely that under threat of full-fledged disintegration from Ukraine the pro-Ukrainian groups will become more active. The declaration about state property nationalization also might work as a trigger. The new authorities of Crimea, in fact, are well-known criminals at the region who legalized on the wave of pro-Russian sentiments. No doubt they do no...