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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
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.
are they voting toward russia? many of these people are also ethnic russians and russian speakers. but 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 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
and today, even as russia once again denied they have any soldiers in ukraine, or crimea at all, troops took control of another ukrainian military post. reporters were held back from getting to the base. and there are reports that some journalists were badly beaten outside of it. all this as crimea edges closer to the march 16th referendum on joining the russian federation. in case it wasn't already abundantly clear what russia's hand was in that vote, one day after the crimean parliament voted for the referendum, the speaker of that parliament was in moscow today getting the blessing of russian lawmakers. for all the seeming unanimity of the current crimean parliament on joining russia and the pro-russia protests happening for the past week, there's one group of crimeans that do not want to leave ukraine, the tatars who make up 15% of the population. they were deported from their homeland, enmass by stalin 70 years ago and only managed to start to return in the last few decades and have made it very
for people in -- for tatars because they remember how their grandparents' homes were tagged similarly. >> it's important, i think, for folks, the history here. we've been talking about crimea historically russian and given to ukraine. it's actually before the russians the tatars were there. it's historically tatar. it was a muslim nation that they lived in. >> well, historically there were tatars there for many, many hundreds of years. there were also -- the peninsula actually switched hands many times throughout history. >> and they have only in the last 20 years kind of come back. >> that's right. >> and already before this crisis, there was already kind of a crisis because these were people who had been essentially
clear how they feel about what is happening in crimea right now. >> our people, we feel unsafe in this situation where on this territory in crimea, is there is no rule of law today. there is a rule of terror. >> over 100 tatar families have already fled their homes and headed to western ukraine, and today there are very disturbing reports that tatar homeses in crimea have been marked with xs and crosses, an action that has a particularly terrifying residence for crimean tatars who had houses tagged by stalin soldiers before he evicted the entire population to central asia. joining me now is rachel denver, deputy director for the europe and central asia division of human rights watch where she specializes in countries of a former soviet union. how concerned are you about the situation for tatars in crimea right now? >> it's absolutely alarming.
unconstitutional. he vowed russia would not ignore the calls for help from crimea. now the readouts from the calls are so wildly different from each side that one can only imagine what actually being on the call must have been like. now, one worrying thing to note here, though, is crimea is made up of three major ethnic groups, ukrainians, russians and tatars. we're learning alarming news about members of the tatar muslim minority in the region. there are reports circulating that tatars in the crimea area are finding markings of an x or cross outside their homes. of course, raises concerns that ethnic tensions in the region are at an all-time high. unclear what will happen next in the congoing conflict. u.s. imposed sanctions. eu is considering sanctions. russia's state-owned national gas company is threatening to cut off ukraine's natural gas supply if it doesn't pay up limd immediately.
the whole situation in crimea right now is luteal absolutely m alarming. the risk is as we get closer to a referendum that the local authorities and the people who support them, the kind of thugs and the -- it's not really clear who they are -- that they will take a preventative action to either -- to stop tatars from expressing discontent with the way things are going. so i think there's a real risk of conflict. there's a real risk of retribution and real risk of violence. >> we saw ukrainian television reporter debating today ukrainian television report about these crosses and markings on the houses. we cannot confirm it independently with anyone else so we did not play that report. those reports exist. it's hard to know what to make of it. what do you make of that? >> well, we also can't confirm that. we don't have -- we're not on the ground in crimea right now. i can't confirm that's actually happened. it is -- if it's true, i think that it resonates very acutely
russian speaking people and about the naval port there and all about krocrimea, is that toy they want to return? is there a call among the people of the eastern ukraine who speak russian, that they want to be part of russia again? i hear the opposite. what do you know? >> well, opinion polls taken in ukraine before the crisis escalated to where it isno now underscoresed that people don't want. 20% are ukrainian. the other 20% are tatars. they don't want in the issues of ukraine. so i don't think there's a big appetite among the people involved here to split ukraine in half and have to go back to a debate other who is part of russia and who is not.
it's hard to predict how this will turn out. but i don't think it matters that much because the important thing is that the ukrainian government is committed to preserving their relationship with crimea. the prime minister has talked about steps to grant crimea greater autonomy under the ukrainian constitution. you also -- we have to remember the situation of the crimean ta tars, historically muz lick population which is supportive of the governments in kiev. >> ambassador, good luck over there. you have a tough job ahead of you. geoffery pyatt. this could have an impact on russia, certainly on ukraine, already has, europe and the united states. fuel exports and imports could be a huge part of this development. today the white house announced the u.s. department of energy will soon make some major decisions about exports of