As the political explosion in the Ukraine continues to rumble on for what feels like its fifth year, the time has come to stamp out the ignorance that has developed because of a lazy interpretation of the facts.
Facebook is a fabulous portal for discovering such idiocies. In a status it was claimed that the 'USA/EU doesn't want Crimea to have freedom as they aren't the ones dealing the freedom' and '96.6% of Crimea wants to be Russia.' Looking at these claims through the eyes of reality rather than using the deception of rose-tinted glasses presents a far more truthful view.
Firstly, there's the criticism of the reactions of the European Union and the United States. The fact of the matter is that the situation in Ukraine is not Alice in Wonderland. We are not all going to wake up tomorrow morning and be thankful that it was only a dream. This is the real world where illegal, irresponsible actions cannot be endorsed due to the knock-on effects they can have.
This is why the EU and the US have decided to take action - to desperately try to prevent other countries from simply invading a neighbouring nation and taking control of it. The international community are also attempting to destroy genuine fears that Russia won't stop at Crimea by making it known that Putin and his government cannot just do whatever they want.
Furthermore, the alleged 96.6% figure relates to the number of people who actually voted in the unlawful referendum, not the population of Crimea as a whole (naturally, people will have abstained from the vote, such as a large majority of Crimean Tatars.)
During the vote on March 16th there was still a huge presence of Russian military personnel, tanks and warships in Crimea as well as herds of so-called pro-Russian activists encouraging people to vote in support of becoming one with Russia by using persuasion tactics like baddies in Bond movies. If you were a voter in Crimea under all this intensely frightening duress would you dare to go against the wishes of Russia? No, of course you wouldn't. Nobody in their right mind would.
But the stupidity reaches a peak when the crisis in Ukraine was unbelievably compared with this year's Scottish referendum on independence: 'If 96.6% of Scottish people want to be independent I'm sure they'll get their independence.' Now, I'm well aware that Westminster is very protective over Scotland and wants to do all it can to retain the special North Sea oil we share at the moment, but where in the No vote campaign did David Cameron mention the involvement of Russian soldiers? The Scottish referendum is legal; the one held in Ukraine was not. Comparing the two is as absurd as trying to compare the Queen with Joey Barton.
The display of ridiculous ignorance mentioned is worryingly not a one-off exclusive; other people also share similar uninformed views of the worsening circumstances in Crimea. The world does not work in an open-and-shut fashion and it doesn't take much thought to realise that Vladimir Putin is acting out something much more sinister than a fairy tale from an episode of Jackanory.