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Crimean history exposes myth of Russian bogeyman

Apr 23. 2019
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Russia seems to have become the bogeyman of the world, a status fed by constant Western lies. For instance, the lie about Crimea is used as pretext for Western interference on Russia’s border. Such dangerous and false pretexts are used in conflicts all over the world and deserve to be debunked.

Crimea was never legally part of independent Ukraine but was transferred for administration to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic when the Soviet Union was ONE country. When the USSR broke up, Crimea should have gone back to Russia. But Boris “Nostrovia!” Yeltsin was preoccupied privatising the country’s state industries with help from American Harvard professors and former black-market bandits turned “businessmen”, who looted the valuable assets made by Soviet workers.

How on earth can democratic Western countries led by the US claim Crimea is part of Ukraine when independent Ukraine did not exist in 1954 and its transfer was made under a dictatorship? 

In 2014, the people in Crimea held a democratic referendum and voted by a majority of 96 per cent to return to where they belonged, Russia. 

But the US government didn’t think it necessary to consult with experts on Soviet Union-Russian history after the break up. Such experts include Professor Stephen Cohen, Gilbert Doctorow and Ray McGovern, all of whom were popular with 

mainstream corporate media before they gave their take on Crimea. Now they are banned and you have to search for them on YouTube and other online platforms to get a glimpse of there actually being another side.

The notion that Crimea was “annexed” was handed down like a fatwa by global news agencies like Reuters and AFP, and taken up by national and local media who have no expertise in the matter. A YouTube debate between Stephen Cohen, Max Boot of the Washington Post and CNN’s diva-like Christiane Amanpour sees the latter two losing badly and reduced to calling Prof Cohen a Russian apologist, stooge and useful idiot. 

Isn’t it strange that Russia purportedly has the skills and means to swing elections in foreign countries, yet is unable to transmit an accurate history of Crimea to the Western public domain and media? The reality is that we live in a time when facts mean little and power holds sway over what we perceive as truth.

A Johnsen

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