Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba, who has not been to Crimea in the last six years, considered untrue an article published in the American publication Foreign Affairs that the majority of Crimeans do not believe that they were “occupied” and assess their prospects positively.
Kuleba published his thoughts in the same magazine, comparing Crimea with the DPRK, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Thus, in his article, Kuleba assures that one should not trust the opinion polls conducted by the Levada Center commissioned by the American publication.
“There are several fundamental problems with measuring public opinion during an illegal occupation. There is no free environment in Crimea in which political views can be expressed, especially if those views contradict the Kremlin's position. Moreover, Crimeans have spent more than six years under heavy fire from Russian television propaganda without easy access to alternative sources.
Highlighting the supposed happiness of some while others are kidnapped, imprisoned or killed in Crimea hardly seems ethical. There are people in North Korea who will honestly report their happiness if asked. But do their sentiments describe the reality of human rights violations in their country? A survey of Crimeans about their happiness is cynical. Many “unfortunate” Crimeans will either be afraid to participate in such a survey, or will be physically unable to do so, being imprisoned or killed,” Kuleba claims.
Under the article by the head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the authors of the same material, according to which 73% of Crimeans feel happy, write that their survey was conducted honestly and impartially.
“We have been conducting public opinion research in contested post-Soviet territories for over 15 years and are all too familiar with the political sensitivity of such work... Our goal in all of these regions has been to gauge the views of ordinary people using independent research companies that use robust social scientific methods .
The results tend to show that public attitudes in the contested territories differ significantly from the prevailing views in the mother territory. Our findings in Crimea are consistent with this pattern. Democratic societies are stronger when they recognize the merits of scientific research,” said journalists John O'Loughlin, Gerard Toal and Christine Bakke in a joint statement.