As ancient Greeks, known for their eloquence, used to teach, if an argument is weak it should be intensified with a loud voice. This is exactly what we are observing today in polemics around Crimea, when hysteria, lies and the use ofdouble standards are substituted for strong arguments.

Let’s try and look at the situation with an open mind.

What happened in Ukraine is a de facto armed coup which brought to power illegitimate forces including ultra-nationalists and radicals who try to rule with the use of terror and scaremongering. Moreover, some of their die-hard anti-Semitic and xenophobic leaders occupy top positions in the new Ukrainian government, which in one of its first moves declared a ‘war’ on the Russian language. It also trashed the agreement of February 21 providing for a constitutional reform, signed by President Yanukovych, opposition leaders and the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Poland. Under these circumstances Crimea’s legitimate authorities decided to part ways with Kiev by holding a referendum on March 16, where the people unanimously chose to become part of Russia.

The right of nations to self-determination is stipulated in Chapter 1 of the UN Charter and has been repeatedly confirmed by decisions of the UN General Assembly and in the UN Declarations on Principles of International Law (1970) and on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (1960). These are based on the notion that when a nation is not given an opportunity to defend its rights within its state of residence, it gets the right to self-determination by means of separation from this state and/or by accession to another state.

Many western leaders and analysts hastily claimed that the referendum in Crimea was “illegitimate” and “unconstitutional” long before March 16. But how can the opinion of almost 97 per cent of the population (with a record turnout of 83 per cent) be illegitimate? Our opponents seem to have forgotten about the Ukrainian Constitution when the new authorities in Kiev ousted the legitimate president of Ukraine (elected during a vote acknowledged by the OSCE) by means which can hardly be constitutional. But when it came to Crimea, they all of a sudden recalled that there actually existed a constitution.

All these statements make no sense if you look at the vote’s legitimacy through the prism of the international law. The way the right to self-determination was used in the past shows us that due to obvious reasons it cannot be realised within the framework of domestic laws.

In a written statement on the infamous Kosovo independence case submitted to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) the US argued that “declarations of independence may – and in their nature often do – violate domestic law. However, that does not mean that there has been a violation of international law”. The ICJ later ruled that “general international law contains no applicable prohibition of declarations of independence”.

One can only wonder how far some of the western analysts can go with the use of double standards and blatant cynicism. For instance, before the referendum in Crimea even took place, one of this newspaper’s authors had dubbed it “illegal” because it was not ‘all-Ukrainian’. This, however, did not prevent him from calling Scotland’s independence referendum yet to be held “free and fair”, despite the fact that the English and the Welsh are not expected to vote either.

Some observers argue that the March 16 vote was held ‘at gunpoint’ while shyly keeping silent about violent riots in Kiev and western parts of Ukraine, looting of government buildings and deadly attacks on law enforcement personnel. It also somehow escapes their attention that international observers from 23 countries including MEPs, more than a thousand journalists as well as TV viewers became witnesses to a democratic and free expression of will by the people of Crimea, who could not be possibly suspected of being ‘forced’ when they went out to the streets after the vote to celebrate its results.

Quite obviously, the current situation in Ukraine was not created by Russia but resulted from a deep crisis that gripped the Ukrainian state, polarised its society and aggravated disagreements among various parts of the country. The efforts of the international community should aim precisely at helping to overcome those disagreements.

With this in mind Russia suggested that a compact support group for Ukraine be set up which would help draft a new constitution and encourage Ukrainians to implement their commitments under the agreement of February 21.

I am confident that the world would be better off if our western partners stopped putting all the blame on Russia and started working constructively and cooperatively on ways to stabilise the situation in Ukraine. Russia stands ready to do so.

Boris Marchuk is the Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Malta.