I know Putin argues this way. He tried to use the "democracy" argument even though he is an autocrat and some people buy it. Euromaidan happened for just one reason: Putin pressured Yanukovych not to sign the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement and he gave in. Ukrainians didn't want to share the fate of Belorussians though. So Putin decided to invade as it was a slap in his face.

> And then here where they actually did vote democratically, you don't support it because you wish it had been done a different way?

No, any vote under the Moscovian rule is not democratic. Actually I don't care that much about Crimea as very few people died but I do care a lot about Donbas as people were suffering enormously. Of course the Russian media portrayed it as if everything was done by Ukrainians. My friends who lived there at the time said the thugs that ruled there didn't value human life at all, something that the whole world was to see a few years later. It was a tragedy that the West didn't react in 2014 and went for the appeasement strategy instead.