We didn't have school staff that could hit us because that was our parents job. I kid, my mom worked at my school growing up so I was never safe. I kid again, mostly anyway, as my mom wasn't a big spanker and I was good at not getting in trouble.
I also can't think of one situation in school that I think would have been enhanced by a teacher hitting me but maybe I'm just into the wrong stuff.
It's unlikely that they'll join Russia, at least in the short term. The 1991 referendum formed the legal basis of the Crimean decision and for whatever international law is worth was legal since all the i's were dotted and t's crossed in terms of Ukraine approving it. Legally, Crimea left Ukraine then. Which is, of course, why it never gets mentioned in the media and they like to pretend that the only referendum was the 2014 one as they can legitimately complain about that one. What exactly the