How and why did Russia annex the Crimea from Ukraine?
The EuroMaidan's victory frustrated Russia's political leaders, who had just forced the Yanukovych regime to turn its back on the West. The Kremlin could not undo the overthrow of its ally in Kyiv, but it could cripple the new Ukraine while at the same time asserting Russia's greater geopolitical role.
Annexing Ukraine's southernmost region, the Autonomous Republic of the Crimea, presented a seemingly perfect way of achieving both aims. With such a thorn in its side, Ukraine would be prevented from joining the European Union or NATO, neither of which organizations accept members with active territorial conflicts. At the same time, “returning" the Crimea to Russia was bound to be popular with the Russian public, which by and large remained nostalgic for the larger great-power polity that was the Soviet Union and, before it, the Russian Empire. The Crimea holds a special place in Russian military mythology that has arisen around its defense during the Crimean War (1853—1855) and World War II. Present-day Russia could also advance a better claim to the Crimea than to the other parts of the empire that were lost in 1917 or 1991 because this region had belonged to the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (SFSR) between 1920 and 1954, before being transferred to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) in an internal Soviet territorial rearrangement.The Crimea was also a low-dangling fruit. The only region of Ukraine with an ethnic Russian majority, the Crimean Peninsula was for decades after the Soviet collapse the political bailiwick of parties cultivating an alternative to modern Ukrainian identity— first the Communist Party and, more recently, Yanukovych's Party of Regions. The local elites were likely to defect because the Russian authoritarian system was more to their liking, as well as for cultural and economic reasons.
The Russian Black Sea Fleet kept a major naval base in the Crimea, in Sevastopol, with commandos easily available for any military operation on the peninsula. They were unlikely to face any serious opposition locally.Within days of the change of power in Kyiv, starting on February 27, 2014, commandos in unmarked uniforms (later revealed as Russian soldiers) began taking over government buildings, airports, and military installations in the Crimea. The local legislature scheduled a hurried (and unconstitutional, under Ukrainian law) referendum on the Crimea's independence from Ukraine and on joining Russia, which took place on March 16, 2014. According to the official results, which many analysts questioned, 96.77 percent of the Crimean population was in favor, with a voter turnout of 83.1 percent. The Crimean authorities declared independence the next day and signed an accession treaty with Russia on March 18, 2014.
On March 27, 2014, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution condemning the referendum and the annexation as illegal. Only Russia and 10 of its allies, including North Korea, Syria, and Venezuela, voted against it. Beginning in April, Western countries introduced the first round of diplomatic and economic sanctions against Russia in connection with its violation of Ukraine's territorial integrity. Within Russia, however, President Vladimir Putin's approval rating soared to a record-high 83 percent. He apparently managed to strike a deep nationalist chord by “returning” the Crimea and standing up to the West.
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- Bibliography
- CHAPTER 6 CONSEQUENCES
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