This Week in the News

In a new poll by the Razumkov Center (a Kyiv-based think tank which occasionally carries out various sociological polls), more Crimean residents identify Ukraine as their homeland. Over the past three years, this percentage has increased almost 40%, from 32% in 2008 to 71.3% in this most recent poll. While this is a significant rise, the national average (that is, in the other regions of Ukraine) is 93%. This could signify a decrease in Russian separatist feelings and I believe that Kyiv should take this as a sign that Crimeans in general might be willing to support measures from the central Ukrainian government of direct benefit to Crimea--although this reinforces a relationship with Kyiv at the center and Crimea at the periphery (meaning a forfeiture of some autonomy). In that same three year span, the poll shows that the amount of people who believe that "there was an acute possibility of conflict" has more than halved, from 24.4% to 10.2%.

Razumkov released the poll data on the same day that Prime Minister Azarov spoke to the effect that the Ukrainian government will continue to allot funds for national minorities, especially mentioning the Crimean Tatars. He added that each year, he intends to allocate additional money each year to this fund. Azarov also mentioned that because of this fund and the support of the state, "there is not a single Tatar without a roof over their head." Though roofs there may be, Azarov knows that there are tens of thousands of Tatar families living in temporary or crude housing on contested ("seized" in Crimean head Dzharty's language) land. Even if his claim that there is no Tatar homelessness were true (and I am in no position to refute it), I would not think that Azarov would want to take responsibility for the actual living conditions of many of these worse-off Crimean Tatar families. Nevertheless, perhaps with more of a mandate--evidenced from the above poll--and therefore a tighter control of where these funds actually end up, we may begin to see real improvements in the quality of life for many of the Crimean Tatars.

Articles referenced in this post:

Poll: Most Crimean residents consider Ukraine their motherland

http://www.kyivpost.com/news/nation/detail/102113/

Azarov promises to increase financing to improve life of Crimean Tatars

http://www.kyivpost.com/news/nation/detail/102161/