The only Russian legislator to vote against Crimea becoming part of Russia has been exiled. [View all]
On March 20, 2014, when Russia's State Duma voted on whether to annex the Ukrainian region of Crimea into Russia, 445 of the Duma's legislators voted yes and one voted no. The "no" was Ilya Ponomarev, a longtime leftist politician and critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Within a few months, Ponomarev was exiled from Russia and stripped of his legislative immunity from prosecution. Though he is still officially a Duma member, he now lives in the US and is attempting to organize a more formal opposition to Putin from outside of the country.
Within Russia, a big constituency for Putin's actions in Crimea and in eastern Ukraine has been the neo-imperialist movement and, to some extent, the Russian nationalist movement that sees these areas as rightfully Russian.
Putin recognizes this lack of attention and lack of strategy and is trying to play on the contradictions. Europe is not very capable as a union in terms of foreign policy, and Putin is trying to increase the possibility that this union could fall apart. He is financing right-wing parties, he is financing separatists.
http://www.vox.com/2015/4/21/8458697/russia-putin-ilya-ponomarev
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