http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-37562158
The article above was recently published and it talks about Russian Scientists claiming that Crimea is physically moving towards Russia. At first I thought it was a joke, but apparently this is something they are actually researching and have "found". Apparently Crimea is moving at 2.9mm per year and in 1.5 million years it will be united with Russia. The Prime minister of Crimea,Sergei Aksenov, stated that "In a geological sense our peninsula has been drifting towards mainland Russia for many thousands of years. The political drift lasted 23 years and only several days of the Crimean Spring were required for us to reunite with our historical homeland." Believe it or not, this is actually the second time that Russia has done something like this, they claimed the same thing back in 2007.
To me this shows that Russia feels insecure about their claim to Crimea. If a country had a legitimate claim over an annexation, why would they need to make such a claim. Basically they are claiming that because a geological shift is gonna merge the two in over a million years they have a claim to it now. That would be like saying I might get a trillion dollars in 500 years so i should get that money now. I think that this is a weak claim at best and to me it shows that Russia is really insecure about their global power/stability
Really interesting and humorous find, Andrew. While this geological phenomena does technically "support" Russia's most recent annexation of Crimea, this is far from the only reason Aksenov would have to claim that Russia is the true Crimean homeland. After all, Crimea belonged to Russia up until 1954, fairly recent history, and many people in Crimea trace their roots, culture and language back to Russia. While I do believe that Russia feels insecure about its global influence, I would not make the argument that this scientific discovery is a desperate plea for Russia to claim Crimea again. I see this more as simply a scientific discovery that just so happens to give the slightest further evidence for Russia's claim to Crimea-- I don't think this will add any political sway to that argument at all.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this probably wont add any political sway to the argument. I just find this interesting that this is something that they would even bring up. I do agree with you saying that they have far more legitimate claims to Crimea, such as it belonging to Russia until 1954. I just find it interesting that they would add this to the list of claims, when they have more reasonable and legitimate claims to Crimea
DeleteThank you for this interesting article, Andrew. I think it is a coincidence that Crimea is moving towards Russia, scientifically, and in terms of its people and governance. I think this scientific revelation may assist Russia in trying to secure Crimea but nothing more. Overall, a really iterating and humorous find.
ReplyDeleteI agree. When I first found it and was reading the article I thought that it was almost a parody article. But when I found out that they actually scientifically found it and were boasting it as a claim to legitimately annexing Crimea i found it to be an even more interesting read.
DeleteVery interesting read. I agree with Mary Grace and Meghan that is probably a ploy by Russia as well. I wonder if Russia printed this in order to justify their annexation of Crimea or if they published it hoping it would be circulated in Crimea. It is not that uncommon for this type of psychological justification in world events. It happened in Hitler's Germany and it even happened in our own country with writers justifying slavery as God's will or the deny women rights because they must serve men. I mean these conclusions are horrible and inconceivable to most, but clearly in every example, each argument garnered millions of supporters. So I wonder if that was Putin's objective in the long run, to have a false study published to just gather support from Russian people to justify the annexation and the Crimean people to increase support to join Russia and denounce Ukrainian sovereignty.
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