Ukraine might not want to deal with that many prisoners. And there are Russian civilians in Crimea, some of whom might prefer living in Russia to living in Ukraine (which seems to me to be an odd preference at the moment, but I expect some still have it.) It might be easier for Ukraine to deal with the place if people who didn’t want to be under Ukrainian rule found it reasonably easy to get out.
Whether this is actually what the people in Ukraine who are making the decisions are thinking, I have no idea.
At the risk of it turning into ethnic cleansing, the Ukrainians probably want as many Russian sympathizers as possible to go home to Mother Russia.
The challenge in both Crimea and even more so in Donbas is the number of ethnic Russians, and Russian sympathizers, who have lived in those areas for years, decades, or generations. Ukraine is for many of them the only home they know. Despite having lots of sympathy and ethnic solidarity or the adjacent Old Country their grandparents came from.
“Vladimir Saldo threatened to retaliate for the latest attack by targeting a bridge linking neighbouring Moldova with Romania. Romania, a Nato member, and Moldova condemned his comments as unacceptable.”
Man, they’re not even trying to hide it now. “How dare you break my nose! Well, I’m going to go over there are break your neighbor’s nose, how do you like that?!?”
I suspect the challenge is less a matter of those who are ethnically Russian (at least some of whom seem to be firmly on the side of Ukraine) and more a matter of those who are Russian sympathizers, especially Russian sympathizers on the specific issue of whether Russia ought to own Ukraine. And I suspect that, having seen the results so far of Russia trying to do so, there may be fewer of the latter than there were before the invasion. But, humans being as we are, I’m sure there are some; and I agree that that’s an inbuilt problem Ukraine will have to deal with – and that they shouldn’t try to deal with it by expelling long-term residents, or possibly even short-term ones, who don’t want to go.
As near as I can tell they haven’t so far shown any signs of trying to do so. ETA: allowing people who want to get out of Ukraine to do so is another matter. And I think that in general people who want to leave a country should be allowed to do so (unless trying to evade legitimate prosecution for something they’re individually accused of.)
It’s against international law to do so, or at least, contrary to the Helsinki principles and most or all of the various treaties to do with Ukraine’s post-USSR relationship with Russia. It would completely undermine the basis on which the West is backing Ukraine.
I don’t think it’s wrong to expel people who moved into Crimea after Russia seized it. People who have lived in Ukraine all their life and don’t care one way or another for either country should be able to stay. People who want to live in Russia, on the other hand, ought to be given that opportunity, just within Russia rather than within Ukraine. The only reason I do not support expelling those people is that it’s hard to determine who they are.
The difficulty is sorting out why. Some of them moved in order to try to take over Crimea. Some of them probably moved, say, to join family members, or to get married, or to take a particular job.
Which is why they should be allowed to leave if they want to.
As you say, sorting out the ones who might want to stay as a fifth column, from the ones who want to stay because they prefer Ukraine and really don’t want to live in Russia, from the ones who don’t give a shit who claims to own the place but want to stay there for other reasons: would be entirely impractical. The best it’s possible to do would be to expel specific individuals who had first been convicted of attacking or trying to attack Ukraine – and I’d add who hadn’t been doing so under force of threat during occupation.
Sure, you want to give civilians the opportunity to leave Crimea for Russia, if they want. But you don’t need the Kherson bridge for that. Just negotiate a land route for them to travel.
You only have to boil the water to prevent cholera. I’m simply gobsmacked. If you can light a fire to keep warm (and given at least some of these guys survived the winter I assume they can do that) you can boil water.
Or, you know…
Also:
I got the basics on purifying water as a Girl Scout over 40 years ago (I did a lot of camping in my youth). This isn’t rocket science. “Don’t drink water you find wherever unless you either boil it or use a chemical purifier”. These days we also have things like Lifestraws, but failing that, a pot (or empty tin can) and enough fire to boil water for a couple minutes works just fine. You might still have sediment or bits o’ stuff in the water, but doing that kills cholera.
The idea that Ukraine benefits more from leaving the Kerch bridge up as an escape route for the Russians that they do from taking the Kerch bridge out as a logistical link for Russian forces in Crimea, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia is fantasy. Russians can escape from Crimea by ferry/ship quite easily. Shipping adequate heavy military equipment and materiel by the same means is much more problematic.