05-05-2025
Trump envoy praises fraudulent Russian referendums as real
'They're Russian speaking. There have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule.'
— Steve Witkoff, real estate developer and Trump special envoy, in an interview with Tucker Carlson, March 21
The emerging Trump proposal to end the war caused by Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine calls for de jure (legal) recognition of Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and de facto recognition of the Russian occupation of parts of four other Ukrainian regions during the conflict. The plan was largely developed by Witkoff, a close friend of President Donald Trump with no prior experience in diplomacy.
This would be an extraordinary concession that conflicts with U.S. policy in place for generations — a refusal to recognize seizures of territory by other nations. Anyone growing up in the 1960s would remember that every atlas contained a notation that the United States did not recognize the absorption of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania into the Soviet Union. The same principle led the United States to organize a coalition of nations to oust Iraq from Kuwait after it invaded and renamed Kuwait its 19th province.
In his interview with Carlson and in other statements, Witkoff has suggested that the people in these regions want to be part of Russia, citing as evidence referendums held under Russian occupation. Let's examine what actually happened. (A spokesman for Witkoff did not respond to questions.)
On Feb. 27, 2014, Russian forces seized Crimea. Russia already had at least 12,500 troops at Sevastopol, a Crimean port leased by Russia and also used by the Ukrainian navy.
Crimea had been an important part of Russia since Catherine the Great seized it from the Ottoman Empire in 1783. For reasons that remain a mystery, in 1954, Communist Party leader Nikita Khrushchev convinced the Supreme Soviet — which had the formal authority to ratify a transfer of territory — to make Crimea part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Historian William Taubman, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Khrushchev, said the onetime party boss of Ukraine had long tried to expand its territory and even tried to take Crimea for Ukraine 10 years earlier, in 1944.
Crimea was populated mostly by Tatars until Russian dictator Joseph Stalin deported the whole population in 1944. According to the last official Ukrainian census, in 2001, 60 percent of Crimea's population was Russian, 24 percent Ukrainian and 10 percent Tatar.
Despite that majority-Russian population, Crimea voted to join Ukraine after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, though it was approved by a narrow majority (54 percent) compared with other areas of Ukraine.
It's also worth recalling that a cache of more than 1,000 strategic nuclear weapons were on Ukraine's soil when the Soviet Union dissolved. That instantly made Ukraine the world's third-biggest nuclear power, with more weapons than Britain, France and China combined. In the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, Russia, along with the United States and Britain, agreed to 'refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine' in exchange for Ukraine's joining the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and giving up the weapons.
Putin's seizure of Crimea violated that agreement.
During his first term and in a recent interview with Time magazine, Trump claimed that President Barack Obama handed Crimea to Russia — when, in fact, Obama rallied European leaders to sanction Moscow.
In 2014, just days after Russia's action, Trump had a different take. In a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump extolled Putin for the 'smart' idea of invading Crimea after the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, had concluded. Trump acknowledged that Putin seized the territory.
'You know he didn't want to do it during the Olympics,' Trump said on March 6. 'Boom. The day after. Saw our athletes leave, we all leave and the day after. And you know when he goes in and takes Crimea, he's taking the heart and soul because that's where all the money is. I was surprised I heard that the other day they were saying most of the wealth comes right from that area. That's the area with the wealth. So that means the rest of Ukraine will fall and it's predicted to fall fairly quickly.'
On March 16, a referendum was held on whether Crimea should become part of Russia. But it's ludicrous to say the results were valid. The referendum took place only nine days after it was announced, with television broadcasts by Ukrainian channels blocked.
Moreover, there was no option to vote 'no' and return to the preinvasion status quo. Instead, the two options were to join Russia — what the ballot called 'reunification' — or become a quasi-independent state beholden to Russia.
A McClatchy news report at the time reported serious irregularities. Tatars and the local Ukrainian community announced a boycott of the vote, but witnesses described a convoy of Russian minibuses and cars crossing the border and heading to polling stations in Tatar areas to cast ballots. Putin claimed 82 percent turnout — for a 96 percent 'yes' vote — but McClatchy said data sent by local officials to the Russian FSB intelligence agency showed that only 34.2 percent of the Crimean population took part.
The referendum also did not comply with existing laws.
The Ukrainian constitution, in Article 73, said that 'alterations to the territory of Ukraine shall be resolved exclusively by the All-Ukrainian referendum,' described in Article 72 as a national referendum called either by the parliament or the president, or as a popular initiative with 3 million signatures from at least two-thirds of administrative districts known as oblasts. The Crimea referendum, set up by local authorities, met none of those conditions.
Under the Ukrainian constitution, Crimea, as an autonomous republic, had specially designated powers. But Article 134 states: 'The Autonomous Republic of Crimea shall be an integral constituent part of Ukraine and shall resolve issues relegated to its authority within the frame of its reference, determined by the Constitution of Ukraine.'
Russia also claimed overwhelming support in sham referendums held in regions occupied by Russian forces, which it then used to justify the claimed annexation of the regions its forces partially occupied.
As a matter of international law, an occupying military power is not permitted to gain sovereignty over occupied territory, but instead is supposed to preserve the status quo ante. Thus the referendums, held between Sept. 23 and Sept. 27, were illegal. The U.N. General Assembly condemned the annexation by a vote of 143-5.
The referendums essentially offered one question: Do you approve of joining Russia? Votes were often collected by election officials going door-to-door with ballots, accompanied by armed soldiers, according to news reports and videos, with votes taken verbally by household.
Human Rights Watch collected quotes about the process.
Witkoff made a fortune in real estate and appears to view a peace agreement as a real estate deal. But in accepting the orchestrated Russian referendums as real — 'the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule' — in effect, he's allowing squatters to determine what kind of building should be built. We doubt that would be considered acceptable in his business dealings.
The referendums were conducted under martial law, with dubious or coercive election procedures, and offered no real choices. Despite his desire to end the war, Witkoff shouldn't pretend these referendums were conducted in ways that would be allowed in the United States. He earns Four Pinocchios.
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