What is your position on what happened in Crimea?
Not a popular one in the “West”.
Crimea has been a part of ‘Russia’ since about 1783 in the time of Catherine the Great, or about the time of the establishment of the USA.
It was administratively transferred from the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic by Nikita Khrushchev, probably as a favour for some of his Ukrainian cronies. It is not even clear that this transfer was legally carried out.
Khrushchev spent much of his life in the Ukraine. I thik he moved to the Ukraine when he was 14 years old.
In the USSR, moving an oblast from one republic to another apparently was not that drastic a step. I have no idea if the normal Crimean really cared all that much and atmthe time no one wanted a fight with Khrushchev.
After the breakup of the Soviet Union this seems to have become a problem, particularly as the Government in Kiev in some misplaced fit of nationalistic fervor, decided to drop Russian as an official language and ban Russian as a language of instruction. This was madness.
There are not a lot of Ukrainians in Crimea. Ethnic Russians and Tartars, both of whom are more likely to relate to Russia rather than Ukraine, together make up about 75% of the population. And, I have no idea how the ethnic Ukrainians felt about Moscow vs Kiev.
With the Ukrainian Government in Kiev on a “Ukrainian nationalist kick”, Crimea was not happy and apparently there was a lot of tension between Simferopol and Kiev. I also get the feeling, not based on a lot of facts, that Ukraine was treating Crimea somewhat analogously to how the USA has recently been treating Puerto Rico.
As tensions heightened more and more Crimean wanted nothing to do with Kiev or Ukraine.
I do not know enough about the politics at the time to know if there was any interest in joining with the Donbass republics, but as far as I can tell there was a strong sentiment for self-government within the Ukraine at least, which seems to have been how the civil war started in Ukraine.
At the same time, the US interference in Ukrainian politics and the suggestion, or even hint, that Ukraine might join NATO had to be raising alarms in Moscow. Sevastopol has been Russia’s main Black Sea naval base since about the time Crimea was annexed in 1783. It is also Russia’s only navel warm water port that can be used year-round without needing ice-breakers.
From the Russian point-of-view, the possibility that Ukraine would join NATO endangered one of its key naval bases. Russia was not keen on having Sevastopol becoming a NATO/US naval base.
With a combination of Crimean sentiment and Russian strategic worries I have no problem with Crimea returning to Russia.
There was a referendum on Crimea joining Russia and the vote was something like 90% in favour. Weirdly enough, it may have been an honest vote, at least, I have not seen any credible claims that it was not.
It is nice to see Crimea is back home.
