Putin in front of a cartoon heart
Photograph by Sasha Mordovets / Getty

When Vladimir Putin speaks about the annexation of Crimea, he does so in terms of the rule of law—according to which, he claims, everything was done properly. The March 16th referendum in which Crimeans voted to become part of Russia, he says, was conducted in full conformity with “democratic procedures and international legal norms.”

Putin can hardly expect his adversaries to accept this notion. In late February, a group of armed men in uniforms without identifying insignia seized the Crimean regional parliament building. Their appearance did not seem to surprise Crimean lawmakers, who swiftly proceeded to vote for a new government headed by the leader of a small pro-Moscow faction. No outside observers or journalists were present for their deliberations, so there’s no way of knowing just what preceded the vote, which deputies were in favor of the measure and which opposed, or even whether any proper vote took place at all. On the same day, the parliament scheduled a referendum on broader autonomy for Crimea within Ukraine for May 25th, while riot police blocked the narrow isthmus connecting the Crimean peninsula to (and now separating it from) mainland Ukraine.

The date of the referendum was soon moved up to March 16th, with a question about Crimea’s admission into the Russian Federation. Since Ukrainian law does not provide a legal framework for such a referendum, new legislation was hastily put together in Crimea. And, because the interim government in Kiev blocked access to a database of voters, the referendum organizers used an outdated list that is about ten years old; they were not scrupulous about voter eligibility, to say the least. Observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe tried to get to Crimea, but were met by gunfire; fortunately, none were injured. On March 16th, just ten days after the referendum law was framed and adopted, over eighty per cent of Crimeans reportedly turned out at polling stations, and over ninety per cent of them voted for Crimea to become part of Russia.

In a matter of just two days, Russia recognized the independence of Crimea. The “sovereign and independent” state asked to be admitted to the Russian Federation, and Russia and Crimea signed a treaty making it so. With vertiginous speed, the treaty was ratified by both chambers of the parliament. By the morning of March 19th, Russia’s Constitutional Court had confirmed the constitutionality of the Crimean accession. “We got this request last night,” the Chief Justice told reporters. “Personally, I stayed awake on coffee.”

Vadim Klyuvgant, a prominent Russian lawyer, pointed out in a blog post that both the declaration of Crimean independence and its recognition by Russia were legal tricks that falsified the actual goals of the parties. In civil law, Klyuvgant wrote, such deals “are qualified as . . . sham.” The European Union called the referendum illegal. “Illegal” was also the wording of the U.N. Security Council draft resolution supported by every member except China, which abstained, and Russia, which vetoed it. Dan Pfeiffer, a White House adviser, said that the referendum was “in violation of international law. The United States is not going to recognize the results.”

Coincidentally, even as he defended Russia’s effective annexation of Ukrainian territory as upholding the Crimean people’s right to self-determination, Putin signed a law criminalizing public calls for the violation of “the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation.” What this means, in theory, is that any Crimean resident—now Russian citizen—who speaks out publicly against the annexation can be fined or sentenced to a jail term. On March 18th, in his address to Russian legislators and other &#233lites, Putin lashed out at the West, especially the United States, for their lawless foreign policies:

Our Western partners, led by the United States of America, prefer not to be guided by international law in their practical policies, but by the rule of the gun. They have come to believe in their exclusivity and exceptionalism, that they can decide the destinies of the world, that only they can ever be right. They act as they please: here and there, they use force against sovereign states, building coalitions based on the principle “If you are not with us, you are against us.” To make this aggression look legitimate, they force the necessary resolutions from international organizations, and if for some reason this does not work they simply ignore the U.N. Security Council and the U.N. overall. . . .

They have lied to us many times, made decisions behind our backs, placed us before an accomplished fact. This happened with nato’s expansion to the East, as well as the deployment of military infrastructure at our borders. They kept telling us the same thing: “Well, this does not concern you.”

There is truth to at least some of Putin’s accusations, and these days it is not uncommon to hear, even from former American politicians and diplomats, that the eastward expansion of nato, accomplished over Russia’s vehement protests, may have been unwise and short-sighted. Today, Putin appears to be asserting his right to act in the same fashion, as he demands that the West “accept the obvious fact: Russia is an independent, active participant in international affairs; like other countries, it has its own national interests that need to be taken into account and respected.” Crimea, he said, “should be part of a strong and stable sovereignty, which today can only be Russian.” Period. Russia has become strong enough, Putin seems to suggest, to be as bad as the United States: to do as it pleases, to legitimate its aggression, and to act without a go-ahead from the U.N. And yet, at the same time, Putin claims that, unlike the United States, Russia does nothing wrong or lawless.

Who is the audience for Putin’s legalistic argument? In Russia, an overwhelming majority supports the annexation of Crimea, whatever the law says. It is regarded as Crimea’s “homecoming,” as “historical justice”—a higher truth than international charters or codes. But Putin’s peculiar rhetorical adherence to “legality” is a familiar thing in Russia. It is well-known to lawyers like Klyuvgant, who was on the defense team for Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian businessman who fell out with Putin and was sent to jail for ten years on what are widely seen as trumped-up charges.

Putin talks often about how the Russian judiciary is independent, how neither he nor anybody else can interfere with court rulings. Yet just prior to the verdict in Khodorkovsky’s second trial, in 2010, Putin announced that “a thief belongs in jail,” and Khodorkovsky was sentenced to fourteen more years. (He was pardoned in December, 2013, ahead of the Sochi Olympics.) The hearings had the appearance of a legal process, with a judge presiding and the defense and prosecution questioning witnesses and entering evidence. Yet the charges were absurd; the judge openly sided with the prosecution, and the decision convicting Khodorkovsky simply repeated the indictment, down to math errors and typos.

Egregious lawlessness underneath legal forms has become an inherent element of Russian life. The West has faced it in the Ukrainian crisis. At home, the Kremlin does not expect to persuade its opponents that their repression is legal. The pseudo-legality is simply a way to demonstrate who has the power. In much the same fashion, the West has no leverage to counter Putin’s rule of the gun.