Ten years ago this month, Russia would hold a faux referendum in Crimea under military occupation and annex the peninsula. In February 2014 Russian special forces held the Crimean government hostage and forced them to dissolve the government and appoint a pro-Russian leader.
Pre-annexation polling of Crimea showed that only 23% of the population wanted to join Russia in May 2013. This in a region of Ukraine that has some of the highest percentages of Russian speakers and ethnic Russians.