Northern Ireland (UK) and the Crimea (RF)

The British Government is one of the harshest critics of the actions which have been undertaken by Russia for protection of ethnic Russians in the Crimea and in Donbas.

But in the past century, the British Government had undertaken similar actions for protection of ethnic Britons in Northern Ireland when Ireland began gradually - at first autonomy, later status of a dominion etc. - to gain its independence from the British monarchy.

There is a excursus to the history below.

In 1911 the Liberal Party Government of Great Britain agreed that the whole of Ireland would be governed by the future Irish Parliament.

However, ethnic Britons, who were and are the majority in Northern Ireland, gathered nearly 500,000 signatures under the Ulster Covenant, which declared that they would refuse to recognize the authority of the Irish Parliament. Inter alia, ethnic Britons’ self-defense squads were formed in Northern Ireland at that time.

Finally, the next British Government - despite of the Liberal Party Government’s promise - decided that Northern Ireland would remain a part of the United Kingdom, whereas the other part of the country later became the Republic of Ireland.

Of course, an Anglo-Irish War started in 1919 which ended by signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in January 1922 and this Treaty allowed Northern Ireland to opt out of the Irish Free State if it wished, which it duly did in December 1922 under the procedures laid down.

But instead of war, guerilla Irish attacks began in Northern Ireland and they ended only in December 1999 when a British-Irish Agreement came into force. This Agreement provided that Northern Ireland remained a part of the United Kingdom and the Irish Constitution was amended to implicitly recognize Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom's sovereign territory.

Now, we are coming to situation in Ukraine.

In 2013 a protest movement – the so-called Euromaidan started in Ukraine and at some point, the pro-Western protesters began to burn and kill during this Euromaidan.

Therefore, the Russian Government had concerns about life and security of ethnic Russians who are the majority in the Crimea - which was a part of Ukraine at that time - and therefore the Russian Government accepted the Crimea into the Russian Federation; please see the article Was there a threat for ethnic Russians in February 2014 in Ukraine (Crimean question)?

But Ukrainian authorities started to threat with military measures for “re-integration of the Crimea” into Ukraine and in 2022 the Russian Military Operation in Ukraine began; please see the article Has the Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine been provoked?

When we consider sequence of events during the Northern Ireland’s crisis, we can suppose that the Ukrainian crisis will end in a similar way.

After some period of hostilities – I hope that it will not last for 80 years like it was in the UK – Russians and Ukrainians too will conclude an Agreement.