Slogan
Author and International Human Rights Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.
The people of the West need to come to grips with – that the government of Ukraine has done great violence against its own people in the Donbass and that the people of the Donbass had every right to choose to leave Ukraine and join Russia.
We spent nearly 20 days in Russia, including 5 days in Crimea. During our journey, we spent around 70 hours in trains riding in close quarters with Russians who we had never met before but who freely shared food and drink with us. Indeed, throughout our travels, we were treated invariably with kindness, generosity and hospitality.
What we found in this historic peninsula on the Black Sea was a beautiful, almost idyllic place, with a bustling economy and a general sense of prosperity and hopefulness. We also found a people who seem quite content to remain a part of Russia just as Crimea has been, except for a brief interval, since 1783.
At the end of April of this year, the two of us ventured together to Russia. We went with the purpose of fact-finding and also to make a point that we do not believe that Russia should be isolated from the world through sanctions and travel bans.
