Context: During the World Economic Forum in Davos, held January 19-23, Donald Trump called Greenland a piece of ice and stated he had no intention of using military force to seize control of it. Prior to the summit, on January 9, he said Denmark was incapable of defending the island and warned that Russia or China would inevitably capture it without U.S. intervention. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, commenting on the situation surrounding Greenland, drew a comparison to Crimea. According to him, the peninsula is no less vital to Russian security than Greenland is to the United States.
Radio Minsk host Alena Radouskaya also drew a parallel between Greenland and Crimea during a January 20, 2026, broadcast of Evening Political Channel:
"Today, as history tells us—and it is quite remarkable—back in 1991, Crimea voted to secede from Ukraine. This is a historical fact. At the time, 93% of residents said they wanted to become part of the Russian Federation. But Ukraine ignored the will of the people back then. And then, well, what happened, happened."
A referendum was indeed held in Crimea on January 20, 1991, but it was not about seceding from Ukraine or joining Russia. The ballot presented a different question: the restoration of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic as a constituent entity of the USSR and a party to the Union Treaty. At that time, independent Ukraine and the Russian Federation did not yet exist; instead, there were the Soviet republics of the Ukrainian SSR and the Russian SFSR.
The phrasing "as a constituent entity of the USSR" did not mean that Crimeans were voting to secede from the Ukrainian SSR. Under the Soviet Constitution, an autonomous republic could only exist as part of a constituent union republic. The referendum agenda contained no mention of joining the Russian SFSR. Campaign materials also focused on autonomy rather than joining the Russian SFSR.
Less than a month after the referendum in which an overwhelming majority of Crimeans voted for autonomy, the peninsula was granted that status as part of the Ukrainian SSR.