Ukraine Crisis: How Russia Used Crime Gangs to Seize Crimea, Destabilize Ukraine

Russia's Vladimir Putin used organized crime groups to help him take control in Ukraine's Crimea peninsula, says this report in the Daily Beast.

And he's been doing the same thing in Ukraine's eastern regions.

The story is reminiscent of reports about the thousands of government-backed thugs called titushki who helped Ukraine's deposed pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovych keep his grip on power by attacking demonstrators and journalists.

Earlier reports have detailed the alleged organized crime links of Sergei Aksyonov, Crimea's Russian-backed prime minister, and the astonishing corruption that prevailed under Yanukovych.

Yanukovych's ousting by mass protests in February prompted Russia to send thousands of soldiers without insignia into Crimea, where they oversaw Aksyonov's instalment as prime minister and the holding of a fraud-riddled referendum in March on the region's accession to Russia.

Ukraine Crisis: Crimean Tatar Rights Activist Found Dead With Signs of Torture

Crimea Tatar concerns about their fate under Russian occupation have sharpened after a Tatar rights activist was found dead Monday with signs of torture.

Thousands attended the funeral Tuesday of Tatar rights activist Reshat Ametov, 38, the Kyiv Post reports.

Ametov was a father of three, this story said.

Ametov had been missing since he was hauled off from a protest by three men in military uniforms in Simferopol, Crimea, in early March.

His naked body was found Monday, the day after Crimeans voted in a fraud-riddled referendum on whether to quit Ukraine and join Russia.

UPDATE: Videos have appeared on YouTube (see here and here) showing Ametov being detained by three men, reports Ukrainska Pravda in this item.

"Only the Beginning"

"This wasn't an ordinary death," Tatar rights activist Ayder Ismailov is quoted telling the Kyiv Post.

"It was a kind of genocide, an inhuman crime, and we understand that we have to come together and consolidate and be very wary because I'm convinced this is only the beginning," Ismailov said.

Thousands of Russian soldiers without insignia took control of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in late February after mass protests forced out the country's pro-Moscow president.

"Lawless" Climate in Crimea

Rights groups have since decried the "lawless" climate in Crimea, including detention of journalists and pro-Ukraine activists.

Tatar leaders have said their people fear leaving their homes at night and walking in city centres, while up to 200 Tatar families have fled to Ukraine.

Tatar and Ukrainian officials called for a boycott of the Crimean referendum, calling it illegitimate.

Some Tatars have said they fear a repeat of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's post-World War II mass deportation of Tatars, in which half their population died.

Ukraine Crisis: 7 Reasons Why Crimea Results Aren't Credible -- And Media Coverage Stinks

Media reporting on Sunday's referendum in Crimea is a study in bad journalism.

An Associated Press story today on the results was typical. 

"Crimea Referendum: Final Results Show 97 Percent of Voters in Crimea Support Joining Russia," the title uncritically said.

Crimean electoral chief Mikhail Malyshev is quoted saying his officials hadn't gotten "a single complaint" about the vote.

The results are beyond dispute, Russian parliamentarian Valery Ryazantsev is quoted saying. 

"(There are) absolutely no reasons to consider the vote results illegitimate."

Voter turnout was supposedly 83 percent, Malyshev said in other stories.

North Korea-Style Results

The AP story was typical of much of the coverage.

Like many other stories on the vote, AP portrayed the implausible 97-percent result with no qualification. It also failed to note reports of intimidation, fraud and misinformation in Crimea that raise questions about the referendum results. 

The Wall Street Journal's similarly unqualified headline was "Ukraine Region Votes to Join Russia." Even U.S. government-run Voice of America ran with the uncritical title "Crimea Votes in Favor of Union With Russia."

In fact, the Crimean results are reminiscent of similarly absurd votes in Turkmenistan (whose president won 97 percent of votes in 2012), North Korea (where Kim Jong-un recently won 100 percent of votes) and Chechnya (where one overenthusiastic polling station made the mistake of reporting a 107-percent turnout in 2012, with all but one of the votes going to Russia's Vladimir Putin).

7 Reasons Official Results Not Credible

Here are seven reasons to suggest the Crimean referendum result is implausible -- and that we actually have no idea if most Crimeans really voted to join Russia:

1) Reports of Fraud: Russian citizens were reportedly allowed to vote in the referendum, while one person was able to vote four times, the Kyiv Post reported today.

News reports also said some referendum ballots reportedly arrived pre-marked.

Malyshev, the Crimean electoral chief, also acknowledged that deceased people may have been included on electoral lists, raising more possibility for fraud, the Kyiv Post said.

In another Kyiv Post story, a Russian journalist is quoted saying she was allowed to vote after showing a temporary one-year residency permit and disclosing to an election official that she is a Russian citizen.

"According to all the laws, this is illegal," the journalist says in this interview on YouTube describing how she managed to vote.

"I am a foreign citizen. How can I decide the destiny of the Crimean Autonomous Republic of Ukraine?" she asked, saying she "obviously questions the legitimacy of the whole referendum."

2) Turnout Was Closer to 30%, Tatar Leader Says: Crimean Tatar officials monitoring the vote report that 99 percent of Tatars boycotted the vote, while overall turnout was actually only about 30 percent, said this Espreso.tv story and this Ukrinform item.

The huge turnout claimed for Sunday's referendum is also in sharp contrast to historic turnout in recent elections in Crimea, which hovers at around 50 percent, Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev told Espreso.tv.

For example, only 56 percent of Crimeans voted in the 2007 Ukrainian parliamentary election. 

In addition, for the vote Sunday, Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian officials called for a boycott. Tatars and Ukrainians make up 36 percent of the Crimean population, further suggesting the claimed turnout is implausible.

3) Surveys Show Only 40-45% Pro-Russia Support: Two recent surveys, including one in early March, suggest only 40 to 45 percent of Crimeans actually support accession to Russia.

Support wasn't in majority territory and was nowhere close to the overwhelming result claimed by Crimea's pro-Russia government, which was installed at gunpoint after pro-Russia soldiers without insignia took over Crimea's legislature.

4) No International Observers: Outside monitors weren't present to monitor the vote -- a point many reporters failed to mention in their stories.

The Organization of Security and Co-operation in Europe was in fact prevented from sending observers into Crimea on three occasions in the days leading up to the vote, while UN envoy Robert Serry was threatened by pro-Russian armed gunmen when he entered the region and was forced to leave.

Crimean authorities later invited the OSCE to send observers, but by this point the organization declined, citing its previous failed attempts to enter the territory and calling the vote illegal.

A small number of unofficial observers were invited from other countries, including a delegation of the European far right and neo-Nazis. The Russian government reportedly offered to pay expenses of any Russian-speaking EU citizens who wanted to act as an observer.

Reporters were also not allowed to observe voting, the Kyiv Post reported today.

5) Intimidation by Pro-Russia Forces: Few stories mentioned the multiplying reports of rights abuses in Crimea since Russian soldiers took control of the Ukrainian territory.

The rights climate again suggests voting wasn't conducted in legitimate circumstances.

The group Reporters Without Borders has called the region "lawless," while journalists and pro-Ukraine activists have been detained and gone missing. 

Crimean authorities took Ukrainian TV off the air, while blanketing the region with signs and messages supporting accession to Russia.

Heavily armed pro-Russia gunmen and gangs are ubiquitous and have created a climate of intimidation. Tatars say their people are afraid to venture into city centres and are fleeing to Ukraine.

Adding to concerns, a Tatar rights activist was found dead Monday in Crimea with signs of torture, the Kyiv Post reports.

6) Climate of Deception and Legal Impunity: Few reports questioned whether the vote could be credible in a generalized climate of misinformation and legal violations. 

That includes bizarre Russian and Crimean government denials that the thousands of Russian-speaking soldiers who have taken control of Crimea are in fact Russian soldiers.

It also includes Russia's discredited claims that it intervened in Crimea to stop anti-Semitic attacks.

Also salient, of course, is Russia's creeping invasion of Ukraine in violation of international law.

7) Exit Poll Dubious Too: The referendum result coincided closely with a widely reported exit poll yesterday that supposedly found 93 percent of voters favoured accession to Russia.

This poll was also uncritically reported in many stories. (See for example this BBC item yesterday.)

Unmentioned in most stories was the fact that the poll was commissioned by the KrimInform news service, which was recently created by Russia's state-owned Itar-Tass news agency.

The connection is important to note because of the Russian government's tightening control over media and the Russian media's notoriously pro-Kremlin coverage of the crisis in Ukraine.

Not sure why reporters outside Russia didn't do a better job.

Ukraine Crisis: Referendum Ballots Already Marked to Join Russia

It's two days before Crimea's disputed referendum to quit Ukraine and join Russia.

And some referendum ballots have already been filled out with a check-mark in support of joining Russia, reports Ukrainian-language Espreso.tv today.

It appears ballots were already filled in when sent out from the printer, the news site says.

UPDATE: A senior U.S. official said there was "concrete evidence" that some ballots in the referendum arrived pre-marked, this Reuters story later reported.

Plans to Falsify Vote

The photo originally appeared in an item on the widely read Russian-language UAInfo.org news site.

That story cited a source in the Crimean government who reported that authorities now in control of the region plan to falsify the referendum with fake ballots and voting by Russians.

The target is to achieve a 73-percent vote in favour of joining Russia, the source is quoted saying.

Busloads of Russians

On that score, Espreso.tv also reported busloads of Russian citizens have been arriving in Crimea, ostensibly to participate in Sunday's vote.

The referendum has been widely denounced by Ukraine and other nations as illegal.

It was announced after Russian-speaking soldiers without insignia took control over the Ukrainian region.

The troops oversaw the ousting of existing Crimean authorities and installment as prime minister of a little-known pro-Russia politician with alleged organized crime ties.

No international monitoring of the vote is planned.

Observers from the UN and Organization of Security and Co-operation in Europe have been denied entry to Crimea or kicked out of the region by pro-Russia gunmen.

Ukraine Crisis: "Goblin," Moscow's Man in Crimea, Won Just 4% of Vote in 2010

Moscow's man in Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, has long been alleged to have been an organized crime figure with the nickname "Goblin," according to this Toronto Star story.

Aksyonov was installed as Crimea's leader after heavily armed, Russian-speaking soldiers took over the region's parliament building last week.

His Russian Unity party won just 4 percent of the vote in the last regional election in 2010.

Aksyonov suddenly emerged as Crimea's Moscow-backed prime minister after mass protests swept Ukraine's pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych out of office.

After Yanukovych fled to Russia, Crimea's political leaders explicitly refused to call for independence for their region, which has autonomous status within Ukraine.

That changed, however, after gunmen took over the region's parliament.

Aksyonov Installed Behind Closed Doors

Legislators were summoned, and their cellphones were taken as they entered the building, the Star reports. Media was banished.

Then, behind closed doors, the Crimean government was dismissed in a move that Ukrainian authorities say was unconstitutional and Aksyonov was installed as the new Crimean prime minister.

This, despite years of allegations that he was active in a large and violent crime gang called Salem, according to the Star. Many Crimean gangsters went into politics in the 1990s in order to obtain legal immunity that came from being a legislator.

Most Crimeans Opposed Joining Russia: Survey

The new Aksyonov-led government initially announced a referendum in May seeking greater autonomy for Crimea.

On Monday, the referendum date was moved to March 30. But today, Crimean lawmakers announced they had voted to separate from Ukraine and join Russia.

A referendum is now planned March 16 to ratify the decision.

A survey in February found a majority of people in Crimea don't support joining Russia, with only 41 percent supporting the idea.

In Ukraine's 1991 referendum on independence from Russia, 54 percent of Crimeans voted in favour.

Monitoring of Vote Promises to Be Difficult

There was no mention of outside observers to ensure the vote is fair and not manipulated by the thousands of Russian troops who have invaded the region.

The difficulties for international monitors were highlighted yesterday when the United Nations' special envoy to Crimea, Robert Serry, was confronted by 10 to 15 armed gunmen in camouflage after he left Ukrainian naval headquarters in Simferopol, Crimea.

The gunmen insisted that he leave. When he refused, his car was surrounded, and the diplomat was threatened. He sought refuge in a cafe, while the gunmen blocked the door and refused to let anyone leave or enter.

A pro-Russian demonstration started outside, and Serry eventually agreed to quit Crimea.

Russia has coveted Crimea ever since the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union. The peninsula hosts Russia's Black Sea fleet.