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abkhazia and south ossetia in the east. russia decided to recognize each of those places as their own count country. you don't become your own country by saying that you are. ask taiwan. if you want to be your own country, other countries have to see you that way as well. that's why taiwan was will to pay vanuatu and why russia has the same problem when it comes to these two countries it wanted to create inside georgia. russia wanted to create these two countries so russia recognized them. then they said, okay, south ossetia, you recognize abkhazia. abkhazia, you recognize ossetia. somebody call vanuatu. it was 2011 by the time russia was shopping around the world for microcountries it might be able to persuade to recognize the two fake new countries it had invented inside georgia. vanuatu for a while was happy to go along with the russians' plan. we don't know what russia
sympathetic populations in the green belt are in danger, that they are being harassed, that they're being attacked, that they're being threatened by the yellow part. >> right. >> by the ukrainian nationals. >> is that propaganda or is there evidence? >> i think a lot of it is propaganda. there are fascists and extrem t extremists and there are certain people in ukraine who don't want to see that, you know, crimea or other parts of the country go away, but i think it would be pretty easy to either create a provocation or to take advantage of a provocation and see russia advance further. that's really what i think the united states is trying to do with all the sanctions, with all the next moves. many people i've spoken to think crimea may be a lost cause at this stage and you have to put these sanctions in place and take a, draw a line in the sand so the rest of the country doesn't go. >> but, obviously these places are more diverse than we're showing in a two-color map. there are ukrainian speaking
china, all of places, mad at you. you know what, $30 million is $30 million. if you're the kind of country that cycles through prime ministers every few hours, that gives you a way to unburn your bridges in cases like this. yeah, vanuatu made china mad at them, but when the prime minister who made that decision got thrown out of office, just a month later vanuatu reversed the policy, making up with china, hopefully pocketing the old hard taiwanese cash. whatever you think of a country diplomatically prostituting itself like this, it's one way to make money and opportunities like this araise from time to time. four years after the china/taiwan deal, cha-ching, russia was trying to create two new countries inside the nation of georgia. you'll remember that vladimir putin in 2008 invaded georgia. russia and georgia went to war for about a week. there are pro-russia local governmentses in these two places inside georgia in
ago. i wonder if that means they're learning. joining us now, nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel who has been reporting from ukraine recently richar ly. richard, great to see you. >> i love that you blurred the videos. they dive off the towers naked except for wearing gourds. >> yes. there's gourds, leaf action. >> this is the only time i think there's been any broadcast on any television network where you're talking about vanuatu and abkhazia in the same sentence. >> but it ends up being, i think, part of the calculation that russia must be making here. this referendum, everybody knew there was going to be some sort of referendum staged in crimea in terms of how to try to normalize the russian invasion. did you know or should we have expected it would be to annex them into the russian federation? >> i think you're on to something here. can i take a step back? >> yeah, please. >> people are saying, putin's crazy, not acting rationally,
russia wanted to create, the country that got the best deal is venezuelvenezuela. reported to have cashed in for a cool $2 billion in russian military aid. think about this from russia's perspective, though. russia had to go all around the world, spend $2 billion-plus, lobbying teeny, tine any kuteen countries. what do they have to show for it after having to do all that? well, this is the list. here are the countries that agree with russia that the two places inside georgia are independent countries. here's a list of countries that disagree. oh, right. the rest of the world. so, yeah, even if the birthplace of bungee jumping had stayed onboard, the last time that russia invaded some place and tried to turn it into new countries, it was just a humiliation for russia. it was hugely embarrassing. and they apparently this year
i have no clue. they made it official, said, we're not recognizing the country that russia was trying to make up inside of georgia. i have no idea if abkhazians have a thing for bungee jumping. to go see where bungee jumping was born. it was a complete mess then it was over. it was confusing while it happened. ultimately it was humiliating for russia. it was humiliating for russia to try and fail to win the affections of this teeny, tiny little nation. russia was more successful with an even teenier nation, second smallest nation on earth called nauru. nauru reportedly got $50 million from rufvush russia in recogniz abkhazia and ossetia. it seems like the country that got the best deal for selling off its diplomatic relations for these little countries that
he's an insane man who wants to grab power. he's not insane at all. he has done this several times before. in south osettia, in abkhazia. send in penal who are loyal to those places. you have them put facts on the ground. you push out the local forces and then you create little states that are really russian states and try to get the world to recognize it. he's done that successfully in the past. nobody kicked up a fuss when he did it for abkhazia. >> was it particularly successful on the world stage, but got him what he needed to get. >> those territories, we say they're part of georgia. georgian troops cannot go into abkhazia or south ossetia. >> embarrassing in its own terms
oplations inside crimea and eastern ukraine. there's the tatars population. >> let's pull up the map of crimea. you're right, there's not a black or white narrative or in this case yellow and green narrative. are they voting toward russia? many of these people are also ethnic russians and russian speakers. bullet there are these other divisions. crimea in particular has one. crimea has about 2 million people. about 30% of the population are muslim tatars and sympathetic toward the new revolutionary government in kiev. and how is this going to go? >> when they become part of russia and they've thought they are ukrainians. >> what i worry about is
for georgia which is a rival state. >> he's done this in the past and had success. this would be number four doing the exact same model, but this time as you rightly say, they're preparing to go even further. instead of creating some false little state that they'd then have to go shop around the world and get the world's tiny island nations to recognize, tomorrow the duma is voting whether it will accept an outright annexation and that is a much more aggressive step. >> wow. in terms of what is going to happen next, obviously the crimean referendum, there's the vote in the duma then crimean referendum this weekend. there's noise that russia is making, at least looking toward eastern ukraine has well. >> this is what i think you need to understand. so crimea, i hate to say it, is in a bad place right now. it would end up becoming part of russia or at least at its minimum state, it becomes a fake independent state that is really a russian state. maximum, it's part of russia.
provocations. you could have some muslim tatars do some kind of attack or have an attack that's blamed on this community then you have a pretext for russia to advance further to take further steps. you could see russian orthodox churches, for example, being attacked in the east because they're so split in that same blue/green map, there is the ukrainian orthodox and russian orthodox church. they don't always see eye to eye. you can see if a couple russian orts dox churches start burning down, that's another provocation to go in. there's a lot of things that could go wrong. if there's bloodshed, the russians might say, you know what, we need two go further, we have no choice. we've annexed the most important bit which is the crimea, but we need to go nufurther in order t protect the russians. >> that's a whole new question. >> then we have a real incident. >> nbc chief foreign correspondent and chief map maker, richard engel. thank you for being here. >> vanuatu. >> vanuatu.