Now technically as I've heard recently on the history of Crimea, this were land generally annexed into Ukrainian geopolitical boundaries by the Soviets (via Stalin) likely in attempting to draw a cleaner looking map, and likely neither having fathomed the formal dissolution of the Soviet empire.  It seems with supposedly weak historical ties of such land and peoples to Ukraine that a referendum result of this type were highly likely to begin with.  Likely if the Ukraine's are deal with any matter of their economy coupled with governmental corruption, it seems focus on cleaning up their party systems ensuring cleptocrats aren't running off with money would be far better focus then dealing with a chunk of land on its southern borders.