Soldiers with no insignia on their uniforms blocked airports and Ukrainian military bases across Crimea in February 2014. Within weeks the peninsula was Russian. The Kyiv Independent estimates about 30,000 Russian troops took control of the 27,000-square-kilometer territory by early March.
The timing matters. The takeover came during the EuroMaidan Revolution, which ended with President Viktor Yanukovych’s removal.
How it was done
Local pro-Russian politicians named Sergey Aksyonov “prime minister.” His party had won only 4% of the vote in 2010. A referendum followed, and Russian authorities announced “97 percent” approval of annexation. International observers, the Kyiv Independent reports, described those results as fabricated. The U.N. General Assembly voted to invalidate the annexation.
RFE/RL puts the sequence plainly: Russia’s Black Sea fleet, based in Sevastopol under a lease, took military control in February 2014. A referendum and a declaration of formal annexation came in March 2014. Sanctions and international condemnation followed.
Why Crimea is not just another region
Russia annexed the Crimean Khanate in 1783 under Catherine the Great. Nikita Khrushchev handed the peninsula to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954. When Ukraine became independent in 1991, Crimea stayed with it even though ethnic Russians were the majority. In 1999 Ukraine’s parliament abolished the peninsula’s constitution and presidency.
The population itself changed sharply over time. Russians made up 2.2% of Crimea’s people in 1785 and 74.4% by the end of the Soviet Union, after Stalin deported more than 200,000 Crimean Tatars in 1944.
Occupation has meant continued persecution of Crimean Tatars and Russian citizenship forced on residents, the Kyiv Independent says. RFE/RL adds that discussions about a peace settlement have reopened the question of who holds Crimea, with Ukraine, Russia and Western nations taking different positions.
Sources
- The 2014 annexation of Crimea: How Russia stole Ukraine's peninsula (Kyiv Independent)
- How Crimea Has Changed Hands Over The Centuries (RFE/RL, Ivan Gutterman)
