Assessing Reality

From the MT:

"Russian Lawmakers to Assess Damages From Ukraine’s ‘Annexation’ of Crimea"

Russia’s parliament has created a task force to assess damages to Crimea during its more than two decades as part of Ukraine. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014, incurring economic sanctions and international isolation. Moscow calls the annexation of the Black Sea peninsula a reunification with its historical territory. “We will analyze the damage and loss brought to Crimea and Sevastopol from 23 years of annexation by Ukraine,” State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said on Wednesday. The task force will be headed by deputy speaker Ivan Melnikov and will include members from every parliamentary party, as well as experts, scholars and representatives from Crimea and Sevastopol, according to the Duma’s website. Volodin said the assessment will be backed by “well-founded figures and facts.” Ukraine named Volodin in a wave of new sanctions Wednesday in response to what the Duma said was the speaker’s decision to assess damages from the Crimean annexation by Ukraine.

^ This is beyond laughable. Every time you think the Russian Government can't get any more ridiculous they come up something like this - just to try and draw internal Russian opposition away from all of their shortcomings. Putin continues to love the Soviet Union and anything Soviet so he will appreciate this fact: Crimea was transferred from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic by the main Soviet Government in Moscow in 1954. Ukraine didn't annex it - that was done when Russia invaded, occupied and annexed Crimea in 2014. I have the feeling that one day we will see an article with the same basic headline only it will say that Ukraine is assessing the cost of Russia's annexation of Crimea and in that case it would be factual. Maybe if Russia focused on improving the everyday lives of ordinary Russians with the Russian Federation instead of interfering in different spots around the world ordinary Russians would not only have a decent standard of living,  but Putin wouldn't have to be so paranoid about being overthrow by his own people. ^

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/03/21/russian-lawmakers-to-assess-damages-from-ukraines-annexation-of-crimea-a64899