I can't really take you serious if in our first interaction you conclude I'm gullible, a complete nutter and utterly mental.

I didn't conclude you were all of those things, just that you were one of those things. I'm a generous man.

Further more, I urge you to travel to Crimea and start interviewing folks. Come back to us, and tell us about your experience.

Recent independent polling taken in Crimea has shown a weirdly high level of support for the annexation - 82% of the population supporting it completely (far higher than the illegal referendum showed), and only 4% of the population speaking out against it when interviewed via telephone. This is bizarre, because Tartars, who are vehemently anti-Russia, are about a quarter of the population, and at the very most less than a fifth of them - which also requires every single Slav sampled to support the annexation - are prepared to raise their objections in public when asked by a stranger.

So essentially, there is a climate of fear and intimidation in Crimea at the moment. Opponents of Russian rule disappear and turn up dead days later by the road, or not at all. Independent institutions have been snuffed out in sequence by the Russian state. Economic welfare has collapsed since the only border with Ukraine has effectively closed. And this isn't to say that Crimeans don't support the annexation - probably a majority do - but that the referendum itself was fraudulent and Crimea has become a far more state authoritarian, even totalitarian society as a result.

But, you clearly already know all this, as otherwise you wouldn't have mockingly asked me to enlighten you. It would be pretty silly of you to say that in order to seem smart if I was actually smarter than you, wouldn't it?.

Just in case you didn't, and you're happy to wallow in conspiracy theories, here's an article praising Russian totalitarianism in Crimea using that same poll I've discussed from your precious Global Research.