Ukraine Crisis

[Zuza]

and presidential elections in December of this year.

Presidential elections already were scheduled for February 2015, only 2 months later. It would make more sense to call an early parliamentary elections.

[Zuza]

I support whichever side is pro-civil unions ftr.

So in the Ukraine your candidate will be "againt all"...

(Though if any of the currently prominent Ukrainian politicians would ever support civil unions, most likely it would be Klichko, I suppose)

[Zuza]

Regardless of the situation in Ukraine (for the record, Putin is clearly awful and I would strongly oppose any further incursion into Ukraine given that his support even in the heavily Russian areas is somewhat flimsy at best), but the Kuril Islands are unambiguously Russian territory under the San Francisco Treaty and Japan's continued claim on them is a bit worrying given the nationalist trends of its government and populace. At least Russia's claimed responsibility for Stalin's many crimes.

But the question is, are the Northern Territories part of the Kuril Islands or are they littoral islands of Hokkaido?  They never were under Russian/Soviet control before 1945.

And what if the (Ukrainian) population of those islands pronounces for Japan?

This is not a thing that will happen.

Depends on how you ask ))

Aren't the Kurils majority Russian, though?

From 2010 Census: Kuril district (Iturup) - 4637 Russians, 349 Ukrainians (and I doubt that many of them can say a few words in Ukrainian...); South Kuril district (Kunashir, Shikotan, Habomai) - 7043 Russians, 466 Ukrainians. I don't know what people settled there after 1945, but even if most of them were Ukrainians, they assimilated long time ago.

[Zuza]

And, in any case, in Donetsk you cannot even do the ethnic cleansing properly. The difference between the local Russians and local Ukrainians is tiny.

It is also important that there are very many pro-Russian ethnic Ukrainians and pro-Ukrainian ethnic Russians. Ethnicity correlates with political affiliation, but not determines it. In Crimea in 2008 55% of Ukrainians stated they would support joining Russia and 30% opposed joining (in comparison, 76% of Russians supported and 14% opposed - difference is significant, but not huge; and I don't think that numbers have changed much since then). Many people (probably most of them) have mixed ancestry, and in many cases difference between Russians and Ukrainians exists in name only. All this makes ethnic cleansing practically meaningless.

[Zuza]

Many of those Russians in Crimea have lived there for generations -  quite a few have ancestors who had lived there before WWII.

Moreover, they became largest ethnic group before Stalin's deportations, by 1900 numbers of Russians and Crimean Tatars were equal.

[Zuza]

Tartars still (slightly) outnumbered Russians by 1926: 140 thousand to 121 thousand out of the total of around 380 thousand (I guess, the Civil War did not treat the local population kindly ). There were also nearly 50 thousand Ukrainians, as well as 40 thousand Germans, 10 thousand Bulgarians and 6.5 thousand Greeks, all of whom would also be later expelled by Stalin (I am not sure about the Greeks), and 4 thousand Jews, who would be killed by Hitler.

It is a data for rural area. In total population (incl. Sevastopol and other cities) Russians significantly outnumbered Tatars (301 thousand vs. 179 thousands; source in Russian: http://demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/rus_nac_26.php?reg=788).

The situation did, likely, change by the late 1930s, of course. Unfortunately, we do not have another proper census in the Soviet Union till 1959, as the 1939 census is well known to be seriously falsified. In fact, there had been a real census in 1937, but those results were scrapped, as they did not conform to what Stalin wanted to hear: given the sad fate of those who organized the 1937 census, their successors had the incentives not to produce surprises. While I do not think that falsifying the ethnic composition of Crimea was an objective at the time (the main "fault" of the 1937 demographers had been to give "too low" population numbers, which, likely, reflected the real disasters that happened in between), but I am simply not sure it would be appropriate to use the 1939 result as a proper historical source.

Yes, I agree that 1939 data is not reliable (looking at change in ethnic composition between 1897 and 1926, influx of Russian and Ukrainian migrants was high, and it is possible that in Crimea numbers are real or close to real: 558 thousands Russians and 219 thousands Tatars; but nothing can be said for sure).