(EDM) By mid-March 2014, Russian “little green men” took full control of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. And on March 18, President Vladimir Putin made a jubilant address to the Russian Federation Council (upper chamber of parliament) on the “reunification” with Crimea, asserting, “In people’s hearts and minds, Crimea has always been an inseparable part of Russia” (Kremlin.ru, March 18, 2014). The forceful dismemberment of Ukraine and the illegal annexation of Crimea produced an explosion of jingoist triumphalism in Russia, which effectively made most of its citizens accomplices in that blatant violation of international law and 21st-century norms of European inter-state behavior. Since then, the “patriotic mobilization” has mostly dissipated and trust in Putin’s leadership has hit a low of 32 percent, according to the official pollster VTsIOM (Wciom.ru, March 3, 2019). Nevertheless, the incorporation of Crimea into the Russian state is broadly perceived as an irreversible fact, even if 46 percent of respondents (compared with 29 percent, five years ago) now feel that the country is headed in the wrong direction (Levada.ru, February 20). […]
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