Thread by @DaveDalton42

1/12 Today is 4th anniversary of Russia’s military coup in #Crimea, organised by Russia’s Sevastopol troops with help of Ukrainian Berkut (on the run after murdering scores of protesters in Kyiv).

2/12 Feb 27th 2014: government buildings seized in Simferopol & Perekop isthmus taken. Sergey Aksionov appointed as puppet leader at gunpoint. Simferopol airport seized, large-scale Russian invasion.

3/12 On the eve of occupation, mid-Feb 2014, not even most Crimeans for “uniting” with Russia. So Russia engineers fake referendum producing 96.7% support “reunification”, on 83.1% turnout.

4/12 All nationalisms are full of fanciful bollocks, & I’m only picking out the fanciful bollocks of modern Russian nationalism because I know a bit about it.

5/12 Putin in Dec 2014: “Crimea is as sacred to Russia as Jerusalem's Temple Mount is to Judaism and Islam”, cos of Volodymyr’s (Vladimir’s) mythological Baptism in 988 at Chersonesus.

6/12 The Rus’ then were no more Russians than the Anglo-Saxons were English: they would become Russians, Ukrainians & Belarusians only in the course of many centuries’ development.

7/12 Another important link in Russian nationalist mythology: sieges of Sevastopol 1854-55 & 1941-42. Chimes with militarism of Putin regime.

8/12 Putin in Mar 2014: “In people’s hearts and minds, Crimea has always been an inseparable part of Russia”.

9/12 The Crimean Tatar Khanate lasted 1441-1783. Russian conquest was 1783, when Crimean Tatars were 83% of pop.

10/12 BUT Russian Christianisation & colonisation only from 1850s. Main period of Russian habitation & rule 1850s-1950s, or 100 years rather than 1,000.

11/12 Russian population dominance aided not only by standard colonial processes, but by enormous Stalinist crime of deportation of 180,000 Crimean Tatars in May 1944, killing half.

12. I've nicked points, quotes, charts, tables from notes taken in Prof Andrew Wilson’s lecture at @UCLSSEES, but opinions & any mistakes are of course mine.