Russia has controlled Crimea since the 18th century. It's not an artifact of Soviet Union.

>All these regional problems are mainly due to the language. If Ukraine allowed Russian as it's second official (or at least regional) language, Donbas would return back in a blink. And Crimea might follow.

What? History goes back farther than the 20th century.

> Russia has controlled Crimea since the 18th century. It's not an artifact of Soviet Union

So Moscow should be handed back to Ukraine, the late seat of the Kievan Rus' [1]? Or perhaps the whole thing goes to Mongolia.

Originalist interpretations of border disputes are infinitely flexible, and justification for constant warfare.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kievan_Rus%27

Why not Poland? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish–Lithuanian_occupation_o...

> History goes back farther than the 20th century.

And much farther than 18th century. Crimea has a long and rich history, Russian power is relatively young and not justified in the modern world. Wasn't one of the ideas of Helsinki's agreements to agree on non pursuing historical territorial disputes?

History counts. Otherwise you wont have territorial issue especially pushed by China and Israel. Helsinki has no gun power to enforce anything. It is based on mutual respect and adherence. At this moment, Crimean people wants Russia whether it is legal or not. Russia has bigger guns than Ukraine and at least on par with Americans at their home ground. What is Ukraine worth to you than the smartphone in your hand? Should you worry about a brilliant tactician that make Obama like a pigeon or a Sino leader hell-bent to acquire back their territory at half the population life cost (read Mao's history on theorectical US invasion)? The bear will most likely make a few slight of hand moves to acquire their objectives with minimal lost of lives. The dragon-snake on other side is and will be very blunt.

But don't they have the right of self-determination if they want to join Russia?

They can move to Russia. They have as much right to move Crimea to Russia as citizens of Maine do to leave the US and join Canada - e.g. not much.

This is all hypothetical though. What happened in reality is that Russia rolled tanks into a neighboring sovereign country, invading it, and stole a part of it. It's a blatant and egregious act of war.

Someone should tell that to the Kosovans who broke off from Serbia 14 years ago, to jubilation in the US and western Europe.

That was a different context though, with ongoing civil war and strife and no foreign takeover but rather a local independence movement. And there is no point debating this here but your summary is very one sided.

> That was a different context though, with ongoing civil war and strife and no foreign takeover

Not quite a take over but NATO bombing of Serbia does count as foreign interference.

I was just about to say: The vast majority of northern maine, including most of my family, is "French Canadian", some of them even having French as a first language. Go ahead and try telling them they should belong to Canada and it wouldn't be a big deal if Canada invaded and annexed them. You won't have many friends

I'm not sure how you can get that sentiment from my comment.

I was agreeing, not disagreeing

> There was no imminent danger to those inhabitans when Russia annexed.

Please tell this to many thousands of people who moved out and never looked back. Also, hundreds of Crimean Tatar and various active citizens were imprisoned during these years. The danger is very real if you are not willing to keep your mouth shut there.