Russia has recently stirred the pot by announcing that the nation will be taking control of Ukraine’s dolphins. No, you are not experiencing hallucinations while reading that opening sentence. Dolphins. Not just any dolphins, military dolphins, trained to find sea mines and enemy SCUBA divers. Ukraine was planning to disband this program next month anyway, but still has its combat sea lion program running. No, that is not another joke.

This is the latest news in a month-long tense international standoff. On February 26^th, pro-Russian forces gradually took control of the Crimean peninsula in southwest Ukraine. It is disputed whether these soldiers were local or unofficial Russian military personnel. These forces seized the regional parliament of Crimea and the building of the Council of Ministers. The parliament then terminated the Council of Ministers and replaced the Prime Minister.

On March 11^th, the parliament and the city council of Sevastopol expressed desire of self-sovereignty or allowing annexation by Russia. On March 16^th, this was put to a referendum. 83% of voters, minus the other 17% such as the Tatars who boycotted the vote, voted 96% in favor. The next day Crimea broke away from Ukraine and joined Russia.

The entire world has condemned Russia for this incident. President Obama has applied numerous sanctions against Russia, and the UN General Assembly voted the referendum to be illegal. As strange as it sounds, however, and referendum fraud reports notwithstanding, I believe Russia has been completely in the right until now over the dolphin issue.

If you were to imagine the same situation occurring in our country with Mexico, perhaps it would put this crisis more in perspective. The southwest, including states like Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, has a large Mexican-American population. Suppose a small part of Arizona votes to become Mexican. This area would have predominantly Mexican heritage and, therefore, the inhabitants would be in their own country again.

Crimea is the ethnic borderland of Ukraine and Russia. According to the 2001 Ukrainian census, 60.4% of the Crimean population is ethnically Russian. Even though Russia facilitated this process somewhat violently and dishonestly, the Crimeans wanted to be Russian; therefore, they should have the right to be Russian.

Russia has the right to Crimea. I, however, believe it has no right to these dolphins. These dolphins are sole property of the Ukrainian military and, if given the choice, they would probably not jump through a hoop to be subjected to the Russian military. Attempted theft of military property can be considered an act of war; so, Ukraine has the right to fight Russia – not over land, but for their dolphins.