#BBC can’t get its mind whether they want to present #Russia narrative or international law, so some dumb editor pictured #Crimea as part of Russia but at the same time Donbas as part of #Ukraine. For this map, the editor would be arrested in Russia as it doesn’t show the “new territories” (Donbas, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts) but they would be (and already are) criticised in the West 🤦
My cynical but experience-based explanation is the program producer tells some intern “go and prepare map for 0:45 frame”, the intern goes and googles “map of Russia” and then a magic copy-paste does the rest 🤷 Quick, cheap, zero brain energy wasted in the process.
Apache Superset project has fixed it partially (added Crimea to Ukraine), but their stance is also very "neutral apolitical", they haven't removed Crimea from Russia (to make both sides happy)
BTW I can understand the Natural Earth disputed policy - they don’t judge, they just describe the actual state on the ground. The interpretation is up to the application maker but e.g. if you’re doing a car navigation app you don’t want your user to drive into a militia blockpost arguing “oh but my map shows this as free territory” and get shot the next second.
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