It has been disconcerting to follow Western media coverage of Sunday’s referendum over Crimea’s future. And today the oddities continued.

France 24 informed its readers that 95% of those who voted were in favour of Crimea becoming part of Russia. As Golos, the Russian election-monitoring NGO, commented there were no independent observers, either during the vote or the subsequent count. So it is possible but not confirmed that 95% were in favour. What cannot be true is the second assertion, repeated unthinkingly by France 24, that there was “an 83% turnout”! [Read more]