As Crimea voted overwhelmingly in favor of splitting from Ukraine and seeks to join Russia, secession movements in other European countries are likely to be affected by the referendum result.
Italians in Venice will have an Internet-based vote on Friday in a bid to boost interest in a bill calling for a referendum on whether the Veneto region should break away from Italy. Scotland and Catalonia are planning votes to secede from the United Kingdom and Spain, respectively.
States that successfully seceded such as East Timor and South Sudan did so through referendums, but Ukraine and European nations claimed that Crimea’s vote violated the Ukrainian constitution and international law as it was carried out without the approval of the interim government in Kiev. The United States and its European allies slapped sanctions on Russian officials to end its intervention in Ukraine.