An overwhelming majority of Crimean voters chose to secede from Ukraine and petition to join the Russian Federation.  The US and EU have already declared the referendum illegal and vowed to retaliate against Russia with economic sanctions.

With thousands of Russian troops already in control of the peninsula, the outcome was pretty much predetermined.  Exit polls said that more than 93 percent of those casting ballots favored secession.  Officials say the vote was 95.5 percent in favor, and the crowds in Simferopol waved Russian flags with no sign of Ukraine’s blue and yellow banners.. 

Was it a fair vote?  Crimeans loyal to Kiev boycotted the referendum, and the EU and US condemned it as illegal.  Only 58 percent of people in Crimea are ethnic Russian, with the rest made up of Ukrainians and Tatars.  The US says anyone against the Russians were intimidated and bullied.  Most voters were blocked from hearing of any alternative to unification with Moscow.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, himself almost an afterthought it what is clearly a confrontation between the West and Moscow, held an emergency cabinet meeting and said the Moscow-backed Crimea vote was “a circus spectacle” directed at gunpoint by Russia.