Legitimacy, constitutionality, lawfulness — A. Mahera, part 2 (21.08.2023)
The second conversation with Andrii Mahera. The key point for the article: the example of the Karelo-Finnish SSR — a union republic that existed from 1940 to 1956 and was liquidated despite the absence of any such mechanism in the 1936 USSR Constitution (a parallel to the accusations of “unconstitutionality”). Mahera reads out the 1996 opinion of the Russian Foreign Ministry (Deputy Minister Pastukhov): in 1954 Sevastopol was part of the Crimean Oblast and was transferred to Ukraine together with it. Separately — on the status of UN General Assembly resolutions and census data on the ethnic composition of the Donbas and the south. A source for the article on the myth of an “unlawful” transfer of Crimea.
Key moments
- 00:46 The Karelo-Finnish SSR (1940–1956): the 1936 Constitution had no mechanism to abolish a union republic
- 03:36 The liquidation of the Karelo-Finnish SSR was carried out in an unconstitutional, makeshift way
- 15:31 Resolutions of the Russian parliament of the early 1990s concerning Crimea and Sevastopol
- 17:50 The opinion of the Russian Foreign Ministry (Pastukhov, 1996): in 1954 Sevastopol was part of the Crimean Oblast and was transferred together with it
- 20:02 UN General Assembly resolutions are not "merely advisory" — the UN Charter and the six principal organs
- 25:46 The 2001 census: ethnic Ukrainians were an absolute majority in the Donbas and the south