Last Sunday my colleagues asked me to comment on the third anniversary of the Crimea's accession - as it is customary to call the Putin's "Novoyaz" an annexation of the peninsula that was part of the internationally recognized borders of Ukraine. Recognized, among other things, by bilateral treaties and agreements between Moscow and Kiev.
Honestly, it was difficult for me to say something new on this subject. I can only repeat what I said many times - on this site, in other media, and in public speeches. I understand perfectly well that I'm going against the current of the Russian ideological "mainstream" - including the opposition. It's not a secret that many leaders of the Russian opposition prefer not to take a clear position on the annexation of the Crimea ... But I do what it should - and whatever happens.
You can celebrate the anniversary of the "joining" of the Crimea to blue, to hoarseness, to loss of pulse, to a fight, to a serious stage of intoxication and the subsequent equally heavy hangover - this will not change anything.
After all, in fact, everything is very clear and simple. The Crimea was torn away, stolen, appropriated - it was a secret military operation, which was personally supervised by the president of Russia - he himself later publicly admitted this to him. Operation, awkwardly covered up hastily, on a live thread sewn "referendum".
Nobody in the world annexed Crimea. For the annexation of the Crimea against Russia, international sanctions have been imposed, no one is going to cancel it - despite the bold predictions of the pro-Kremlin analysts who periodically predict that the lifting of sanctions is about to happen.
Yeah, it happens, keep the pocket wider.
As in the case of Trump. Trump was hoping for something: he would abolish the sanctions! But the new president of the US, yes, the statement that the Crimea was illegally annexed and should be returned to Ukraine.
Russia, of course, is sick. In any case, it seems to me clearly from my Kiev far away.
How can you make a holiday a date for an international crime? To arrange celebrations and concerts?.
How can you be proud of what condemns the whole world?.
How can one not even think about the fact that as a result of all that happened, the Crimean Tatar people - one of the people repressed by Stalin - returned, in fact, to the former humiliated and offended position? What, in fact, is one of the most shameful, shameful pages in the history of the national national policy revived in full?.
How can you not see the obvious: from the "joining" of the Crimea, the life of a simple Russian citizen does not get any better by one iota?.
How can people in their right mind rejoice that your government in the world is perceived as an international hooligan who is still curseing, brazenly lies to everyone in the eyes - they say, I had nothing to do with it, I was not there, we are not there, and there. , And t.
The event, which was presented by Putin's propaganda almost as a new benchmark on the path to the revival of Russia as a great power, I think, in fact, sooner or later will be perceived as a starting point in the history of the degradation of Putin's regime. This process will, most likely, be long. But sooner or later the Putin regime will not.
By what scenario this will happen - today hardly anyone will be able to describe.
But it will happen inevitably - and it is possible, unfortunately, that this will happen in a much more harsh and bloody scenario than the one on which the fall of the communist regime in the USSR happened.
And the Crimea - it will have to be returned. As it was necessary to return the independence of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia more than 50 years after the Soviet Union committed an act of annexation of the three Baltic states - an act that was never recognized by the same United States. This, too, will probably be a very difficult and painful process. But he will go inevitably - mark my word.
Original.