KIEV, Ukraine — In what seemed to be an ominous beginning to the day, dark clouds and heavy rains swept over Crimea as residents of the Black Sea peninsula went to the polls to decide their future in a move backed by the Kremlin but denounced by the acting Ukrainian government and the West.
As those in Crimea vote, they will be doing so literally under the gun, with thousands of heavily armed Russian soldiers and several Kalashnikov-wielding pro-Russian militia units who have besieged the peninsula breathing down their necks.
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Polls opened at 8 a.m. and will close at 8 p.m., Kiev time. Preliminary results will be released late in the day, with final results expected in two or three day’s time. But the result is widely believed to be a foregone conclusion: seceding from Ukraine and joining Russia.
Once inside the hastily constructed voting booths, Crimean voters have just two options to choose from: “Do you support joining Crimea with the Russian Federation as a subject of Russian Federation?” or, “Do you support restoration of 1992 Crimean Constitution and Crimea's status as a part of Ukraine?”
This gives the illusion that there are two clear, opposite choices: to join Russia, or to stay a part of Ukraine. But it is not as simple as that.
Should the majority in Crimea vote for the first option, it would effectively validate an earlier vote by the Crimean parliament to secede from Ukraine and pave the road for it to formally appeal to Russia to annex it, making it a “federal subject” of the Russian Federation. The Russia State Duma has said it is prepared to discuss this option on March 21.
Under the second option, Crimea would become an independent entity within Ukraine and be free to choose its own path, which its government, under the leadership of pro-Kremlin Prime Minister Sergey Aksyonov, would be becoming part of the Russian Federation.
One need not look further than Aksyonov’s post on Twitter this morning to get a glimpse of what is to come, despite the outcome of the vote.
“Referendum will take place as the people want, and it will be inexorable and peremptory, Crimea will become part of Russia!”
Референдум пройдёт так, как хочет этого народ Крыма и он будет неумолимым и безапелляционным, Крым станет частью России!
— Сергей Аксенов (@sergyaksenov) March 16, 2014
Two hours into the voting, most of the ballots seen by journalists in the plexiglass drop boxes and posted to social media showed Crimeans had turned out to support the split from Ukraine.
The peninsula has an electorate of more than 1.5 million, many of whom are ethnic Russians and are expected to vote for secession. Minority ethnic Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar populations have said they will boycott Sunday’s vote.
The vote was set in motion less than three weeks ago, when Russian soldiers swarmed the Black Sea peninsula, which dangles like a pendant from southern Ukraine, and effectively seized control in late February, mere days after Ukraine’s new government voted to impeach its pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych. He turned up in Russia later, after hastily fleeing his palatial estate outside Kiev known as Mezhyhirya.
Since then, blue and yellow Ukrainian flags have been replaced with white, blue and red Russian ones at government buildings in Crimea, and rallies and concerts have been held in the region’s capital of Simferopol, as well as the staunchly pro-Russian seaside city of Sevastopol, in support of the region returning to its “motherland.”
Crimea was a part of Russia until Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave the region to Soviet Ukraine in 1954.
Ukraine's acting Foreign Minister Andrii Deshchytsia said on Saturday that the interim government remained steadfast in its position that the Crimean referendum is illegitimate and unconstitutional. Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov and interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk have said Kiev and the international community will not recognize the results of today’s vote.
по Севастополь проехала колонна байкеров под андреевским флагом, триколором и имперкой, за ними авто pic.twitter.com/Xgh2pR04Hd
— Feldman (@EvgenyFeldman) March 16, 2014
The West has supported the interim Ukrainian government over the course of the past weeks, during which time U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry held exhaustive talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that have thus far failed to find a diplomatic solution on the issue, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned Moscow that it risked “massive” political and economic damage if it refused to change course regarding Ukraine.
Several European countries, along with the U.S., have already imposed sanctions against members of Ukraine’s former government who are believed to have played a role in the killings of some 100 people, which include protesters and police, during violent clashes in Kiev in recent months. They say they are now preparing to do the same to top Russian officials should the Kremlin not back down in Crimea and the annexation of it goes through.
Moscow has publically supported the Crimean referendum but categorically denied direct involvement there, saying the armed men in nondescript military uniforms are not Russian troops, but local pro-Russian militia units.
Its Foreign Ministry, however, has justified potential action in Ukraine, saying that it reserves the right to intervene in order to protect the large ethnic Russian populations in Crimea and the eastern regions of the country’s mainland from radical “fascists,” “nationalists” and “extremists” who have seized power in Kiev through a coup d’état and are spreading unrest.
The ominous threat has many here worried that Russia will invade the eastern cities of Donetsk, Kharkiv and Luhansk, like it has done in Crimea, and move to annex them.
"The situation is very dangerous. I'm not exaggerating,” Turchynov, the country’s interim president, told parliament on Saturday. "There is a real danger from threats of invasion of Ukrainian territory."
Russian troops already have entered mainland Ukraine, capturing a natural gas distribution station in Kherson region, northeast of Crimea on Saturday, according to Ukraine’s foreign and defense ministries. Kherson region supplies much of Crimea with its water and electricity.
Another concern is for the Ukrainian troops barricaded inside their own military complexes in Crimea. To date, at least eight Ukrainian military units in Crimea have been seized, 22 others are blocked, and 49 of 56 border patrol stations have been besieged and kept from operating, according to Ukraine's foreign ministry.

Inside the bases are thousands of Ukrainian soldiers whose futures are uncertain. Russian troops have demanded they lay down their arms and pledge their allegiance to the Crimean people, or else face a “military storm.” But they have remained loyal to Ukraine.
Come Monday, should the referendum pass, there are fears that the Ukrainian soldiers could come up against that “military storm” by Russian troops and pro-Russian militia units who have warned as much, as the Crimean government would then claim the peninsula to be a de facto Russian state.
A group of U.S. senators, led by Sen. John McCain, told journalists in Kiev on Saturday that they would hold Russian President Vladimir Putin personally responsible for whatever might happen to the Ukrainian soldiers barricaded inside their Crimean bases.
“We’ll hold Putin personally responsible for anything that happens to them,” Sen. John Barrasso said.
Ahead of the much-anticipated referendum on Sunday, Ukraine teetered on the brink of violence, as reports came in that two men were killed during a gun battle between pro- and anti-Russian groups on Friday in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv and thousands of pro-Russian demonstrators stormed a law enforcement building in the eastern city of Donetsk, shattering its windows before marching back to central Lenin Square.
And on Saturday, 50,000 Russians held an anti-war march, protesting Putin’s intervention in Ukraine.
On Sunday, as Crimeans went to the polls, several hundred Kiev citizens milled around on the city’s Independence Square, the site of deadly clashes between police and protesters last month that cost dozens of lives. They laid flowers and said prayers at the sites where many protesters were slain by sniper bullets as musicians sang from a stage and activists delivered messages of unity.
Anna Gukova, a housewife, was there with her mother and daughter, Masha. Three women brought red carnations to lay at the foot of a memorial to one of the fallen. She said she was worried the passage of the Crimean referendum would embolden Putin and inflame tensions in Ukraine.
“Look at all of these fallen heroes. We don’t need more to die,” Gukova told Mashable. “[Russia] needs to listen and realize that this referendum is totally illegal. Most of the people there don’t even want to be with the Russian Federation, but they have to vote that way. With a gun to your head, what can you do?”
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Christopher J. Miller is an editor at English-language newspaper the Kyiv Post in Ukraine.