I honestly can't tell if people that write this type of stuff are delusional or misinformed or both or what's going on. Ah, yes, a "referendum", announced 3 days in advance, done in less than a week, in the middle of a war-zone, with a refugee crisis happening, with invading soldiers on every corner, with no multiple unbiased third party observers. Mariupol had over 400 000 people before this invasion, in January, and now it has less than 100 000. The Catalan referendum took literal years (the Catalonia/Spain situation and what I may or may not think of it being beside the point) to be finished. The only time I can think of this kind of referendum happening was with that guy with a mustache in Austria, but that's not a flattering look, you don't want that comparison.

In the most recent elections in 2019 the "pro-Russian" parties and candidates (the blue ones, and only the dark blue one was decisively pro-Russian, the leader of the light blue party had this to say once the invasion happened) didn't constitute the majority anywhere, especially not in southern Ukraine. And for those who did vote, voting for a party that wants closer ties with Russia and joining CIS ("Russia's EU" ) means you want to be annexed into Russia they same way voting for a pro-EU party and closer ties with the EU means you want to be annexed into Poland. In case it's not clear, it doesn't.

And to top it all of, you'll notice the area that voted in a higher amount for closer ties with Russia and voted for the "pro-peace" parties as they were called, in a more detailed view, through several stages of the election, almost matches the borders of the oblasts, one, two, three, and not any kind of ethnic or declared language or linguistic boundaries. Which means people there are sick of a war ravaging their home, their towns being cut of from the regional center, where their kids might've went to uni before the war, and so on, and most poeple don't care about the whole "we're Russians, we love Russia, we want to be a part of it so bad" kind of thing.

The only regions that might make some sense are Crimea and the former secessionist area, but I guess we'll never know for sure, with how those annexations and invasions were carried out too. And guess what, when Crimea was invaded, the world mostly didn't care, even Ukraine mostly just "sent a stern letter". When the Donbas secessionists did their thing, the world still mostly didn't care. Ukraine, of course had to, it was a mixed area with no clear borders, of course it had to respond. There was no slow build up to a referendum, nothing, just a straight up secession in a mixed area. And even then, the new border seems to have mostly matched the area of ethnic Russians which means, probable local support, and it divided the oblasts in half, roughly accordingly to support, and the border was frozen, for almost a decade.

The main reason this invasion is happening is because Putin and his oligarch and KGB clique are deathly afraid of a more democratic and pro-EU Russian-language-knowing-and-speaking country right next door and what it could do to their power positions. And the US and Russia battling for better power positioning over the backs of Ukraininans. And so they went for a land bridge to Crimea, whether the people there want it or not, with military force, and they went for puting a ball and a chain on the ankle of Ukraine, that's what this is about. Probably mix in a bit of delusional nationalistic grandeur on Putin's part of wanting to have a "legacy", and a bit of paranoia, and what not.

Acting like this 2022 invasion is what the people of Ukraine wanted is ridiculous.

Mycroft, what is a farce?

What is this Russian Crimea that you speak of?