THE ANNEXATION OFCRIMEA

IB GLOBAL POLITICS

CASE STUDY

UWC COSTA RICA

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MAP

Map taken from the Economist website at

https://www.economist.com/europe/2019/06/08/crimea-is-still-in-

limbo-five-years-after-russia-seized-it

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INTRODUCTIONUkraine’s most prolonged and deadly crisis

since its post-Soviet independence began as a

protest against the government dropping plans

to forge closer trade ties with the European

Union, and has since spurred escalating

tensions between Russia and Western powers.

The crisis stems from more than twenty years of

weak governance, a lopsided economy

dominated by oligarchs, heavy reliance on

Russia, and sharp differences between

Ukraine’s linguistically, religiously, and

ethnically distinct eastern and western regions.

After the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovich

in February 2014, Russia annexed the Crimean

peninsula and the port city of Sevastopol, and

deployed tens of thousands of forces near the

border of eastern Ukraine, where conflict

erupted between pro-Russian separatists and

the new government in Kiev. Russia’s moves,

including reported military support for

separatist forces, mark a serious challenge to

established principles of world order such as

sovereignty and nonintervention.

Why is Ukraine in Crisis?

The country of forty-five million people has

struggled with its identity since the dissolution

of the Soviet Union in 1991. Ukraine has failed

to resolve its internal divisions and build strong

political institutions, hampering its ability to

implement economic reforms. In the decade

following independence, successive presidents

allowed oligarchs to gain increasing control

over the economy while repression against

political opponents intensified.

By 2010, Ukraine’s fifty richest people

controlled nearly half of the country’s gross

domestic product, writes Andrew Wilson in the

CFR book Pathways to Freedom.

A reformist tide briefly crested in 2004 when

the Orange Revolution, set off by a rigged

presidential election won by Yanukovich,

brought Viktor Yushchenko to the presidency.

Yet infighting among elites hampered reforms,

and severe economic troubles resurged with

the global economic crisis of 2008. The

revolution also masked the divide between

European-oriented western and central

Ukraine and Russian-oriented southern and

eastern Ukraine.

Campaigning on a platform of closer ties with

Russia, Yanukovich won the 2010 presidential

election. By many accounts, he then reverted

to the pattern of corruption and cronyism. His

family may have embezzled as much as $8

billion to $10 billion a year over three years,

according to Anders Aslund of the Peterson

Institute for International Economics. He also

imprisoned his reformist opponent in the 2010

presidential race, Yulia Tymoshenko, on

charges of abuse of power.

Yanukovich continued talks with the EU on a

trade association agreement, which he

signaled he would sign in late2013.

(Tymoshenko’s release was one of the

conditions set by the EU for the trade

association agreement.) But under pressure

from Russia, he dropped those plans in

November, citing concerns about European

competition.

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The decision provoked demonstrations in Kiev

on what became known as the Euromaidan by

protesters seeking to align their future with

Europe’s and speaking out against corruption.

The Yanukovich government’s crackdown after

three months of protests, in some cases

spurring reprisals by radicalized demonstrators,

caused the bloodiest conflict in the country’s

post-Soviet period, with scores killed.

Yanukovich’s subsequent ouster sowed new

divisions between the eastern and western

halves of the country, and fighting between

pro-Russian separatists and government forces

broke out in April 2014. Separatists in the

regions of Luhansk and Donetsk established

self-declared “people’s republics.”

Elections on May 25 brought pro-Western

businessman Petro Poroshenko into power, and

he moved to try to reassert central government

control over restive eastern cities. By August,

the fighting had killed more than 2,000 people

and caused hundreds of thousands to flee their

homes, according to UN officials. Officials in

Kiev and NATO states accused Russia of

arming the separatists and said rebels in

eastern Ukraine using Russia-supplied ground-

to-air missiles were responsible for the

downing of a civilian airliner in July 2014, in

which 298 people were killed. Russia denied

the charges but has continuously deployed

thousands of troops near the Ukrainian border

What are Russia's concerns?

Russia has strong fraternal ties with Ukraine

dating back to the ninth century and the

founding of Kievan Rus, the first eastern Slavic

state, whose capital was Kiev. Ukraine was

part of Russia for centuries, and the two

continued to be closely aligned through the

Soviet period, when Ukraine and Russia were

separate republics. “The West must understand

that, to Russia, Ukraine can never be just

aforeign country,” wrote former U.S. secretary

of state Henry Kissinger in a Washington Post

op-ed

Ukraine is also a major economic partner that

Russia would like to incorporate into its

proposed Eurasian Union, a customs bloc due

to be formed in January 2015 whose likely

members include Kazakhstan, Belarus, and

Armenia.

Ukraine plays an important role in Russia’s

energy trade; its pipelines provide transit to 80

percent of the natural gas Russia sends to

European markets, and Ukraine itself is a major

market for Russian gas. Militarily, Ukraine is

also important to Russia as a buffer state, and

was home to Russia’s Black Sea fleet, based in

the Crimean port city of Sevastopol under a

bilateral agreement between the two states.

Russia considers EU efforts to expand

eastward to Ukraine, even through a relatively

limited association agreement, as an alarming

step that opens the door to others Western

institutions. The EU’s Eastern Partnership

Program is aimed at forging tighter bonds with

six former Eastern bloc countries, but Russia

sees it as a stepping stone to organizations

such as NATO, whose eastward expansion is

regarded by Russia’s security establishment as

a threat. Ukraine belongs to NATO’s

Partnership for Peace program, but is seen as

having little prospect of joining the alliance in

the foreseeable future.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has portrayed

his country’s role in Ukraine as safeguarding

ethnic Russians worried by lawlessness

spreading east from the capital, charges that

leaders in Kiev dismiss as provocations. In the

case of Crimea, Putin has stressed Moscow is

not imposing its will, but rather, supporting the

free choice of the local population, drawing

parallels with the support Western states gave

to Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence

from Serbia. Shortly before moving to annex

Crimea on March 18, Putin told the Russian

parliament that Russia would protect the rights

of Russians abroad.

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What is the role of the European Union?

The EU’s Eastern Partnership Program was

established in 2009 to expand political and

economic ties between the EU and Armenia,

Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and

Ukraine, while stopping short of offering

membership to partner countries. The ill-fated

association agreement negotiated by EU

officials and the Yanukovich government

involved a comprehensive free-trade deal. A

number of analysts fault EU officials for

neglecting the broader geopolitical

implications of the deal for Russia, and

declining to map out strategic aims for Europe.

After Poroshenko’s election, he pressed

forward plans to sign the association

agreement and Ukraine did so along with

Moldova and Georgia on June 27, 2014.

Poroshenko said after signing the agreement:

“Ukraine is underlining its sovereign choice in

favor of membership of the EU.”

What is the status of Crimea?

Prior to the crisis, Crimea was an autonomous

republic of Ukraine of two million people with

its own parliament and laws that permitted the

use of the Russian language in everyday life.

After the ouster of Yanukovich in February

2014, Crimea’s parliament called for a

referendum, in which the peninsula’s 1.5 million

voters opted overwhelmingly for union with

Russia. Following that vote, Russian legislators

passed a resolution nullifying Ukrainian laws in

Crimea and putting in force Russian legislation.

Parliament set a deadline of January 1, 2015 for

the integration of Crimea’s economic,

financial, credit, and legal systems into the

Russian Federation, reported Itar-Tass. It said

matters related to military service in Crimea

and Sevastopol will be settled by then as well.

he peninsula only became part of Ukraine in

1954, when Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev

transferred it from the Russian Soviet Socialist

Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist

Republic in what was seen as a largely

symbolic administrative move. The majority-

Russian residents of Crimea continued to have

strong ties with Russia. Following the

dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the two

new countries reached an agreement to permit

the Russian Black Sea fleet to remain based at

the Crimean port of Sevastopol.

Overall, Russians make up an estimated 59

percent of the population of Crimea,

Ukrainians make up about 23 percent, and

Muslim Tatars about 12 percent.

Do Russian moves in Ukraine violate

international law?

U.S. officials say Russia’s actions in Crimea and

eastern Ukraine are in breach of international

law, including the nonintervention provisions in

the UN Charter; the 1997 Treaty on Friendship

and Cooperation between Russia and Ukraine,

which requires Russia to respect Ukraine’s

territorial integrity; and the 1994 Budapest

Memorandum on Security Assurances. Signed

by the United States, UK, and Russia, that

document provided security guarantees to

Ukraine in exchange for relinquishing its

nuclear arsenal.

For its part, Russia has rejected charges that it

is violating international law.

What are U.S. and European policy options

in Ukraine?

In response to the developments in Crimea and

eastern Ukraine, EU and U.S. policymakers

have taken a series of steps that include:

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Economic aid: The IMF in the spring approved

a loan package for Ukraine for $17 billion over

two years. The EU has delivered hundreds of

millions of dollars of an announced $15 billion

support package for Ukraine, with payments

conditioned on Ukraine enacting tough reforms

like ending gas subsidies. Washington has

promised more than $1 billion in U.S. loan

guarantees and technical assistance. In late

August 2014, German chancellor Angela

Merkel pledged nearly $700 million in aid to

help Ukraine rebuild war-damaged areas in the

east and aid refugees.

Sanctions: The United States, the EU, Japan,

and Canada have imposed sanctions on scores

of Russian and Ukrainian officials and

businesses said to be linked to the seizure of

Crimea and the escalation in tensions. The

measures include travel bans and the freezing

of assets. The United States and European

Union announced more severe measures in late

July that blocked some Russian banks from U.S.

and European capital markets, and generally

target Russian finance, energy, and defense

industries. Russia was hit by a slowdown in

growth and investment in the first quarter of

2014, and the scope of the new sanctions

suggest a substantial, longer-term cost to the

Russian economy,says CFR’s Robert Kahn.

Russia retaliated by banning imports of food

stuffs from the United States and many

European states in July 2014.

Energy aid: Some experts and U.S. lawmakers

have called for accelerating the approval of

U.S. natural gas proposals, which would take

advantage of booming U.S. production to help

lessen the reliance of European partners and

Ukraine on Russian natural gas. U.S. law

currently excludes the sale of natural gas to

countries that are not free-trade partners, but

the Energy Department can approve sales that

are deemed in the public interest. But some

analysts caution that even with the lifting of

export restrictions, it could take years and cost

billions of dollars to set up the necessary

infrastructure.

Military aid: The United States has bolstered

NATO’s air presence over the Baltic states and

deployed about six hundred soldiers in Latvia,

Lithuania, and Estonia, as well as Poland to

train with local forces as part of Operation

Atlantic Resolve. NATO secretary-general

Anders Fogh Rasmussen called the crisis the

greatest threat to European security since the

end of the Cold War, and reasserted alliance

ties with Ukraine through the Partnership For

Peace Program. The 2014 NATO summit in

Wales is expected to be dominated by

the alliance’s response to the crisis in Ukraine.

This content is taken directly from the Council

on Foreign Relations website and is available

at

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/ukraine-

crisis

'DEAR TO OUR HEARTS'

THE CRIMEAN CRISIS FROM THE KREMLIN'SPERSPECTIVE

The EU and US have come down hard on

Russia for its annexation of the Crimean

Peninsula. But from the perspective of the

Kremlin, it is the West that has painted

Putin into a corner. And the Russian

president will do what it takes to free

himself.

Last September, Vladimir Putin invited Russia

experts from around the world to a

conference, held halfway between Moscow

and St. Petersburg. At the gathering, the

Russian president delivered a passionate

address.

"We will never forget that Russia's present-day

statehood has its roots in Kiev. It was the

cradle of the future, greater Russian nation,"

Putin said. He added that Russians and

Ukrainians have a "shared mentality,

shared history and a shared culture. In this

sense we are one people."

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At the time, German and European leaders still

believed that it would be possible to bind

Ukraine to the European Union by way of an

Association Agreement and to free the country

from Moscow's clutches. But Putin had

long before made the decision to prevent such

an eventuality.

Indeed, he had already used the Crimean

Peninsula as his stage for a symbolic and

vaguely menacing appearance in the summer

of 2012. Astride a three-wheel motorcycle, a

black-clad Putin was photographed at the

head of a group of staunch nationalist bikers.

Like a group of modern-day knights, they tore

across Ukrainian territory. Even then it was

clear who Putin thought was the true leader of

Ukraine: himself.

Putin knows that the vast majority of Russians

are on his side when it comes to his Crimean

policy. His cool and calculated -- and thus far

remarkably peaceful -- annexation of the

peninsula led to celebrations across Russia.

After all, the conviction that Crimea -- with its

"Hero Cities" of Sevastopol and Kerch in

addition to Russia's Black Sea fleet -- is

Russian soil is widespread and shared even by

many in the opposition camp. These are

places, Putin said in his address last week, that

are "dear to our hearts" and for which Russian

soldiers fought and died. Even Nobel Peace

Prize laureate Mikhail Gorbachev said last

week that the West should accept the results

of the Crimea referendum. "This should be

welcomed instead of declaring sanctions," he

said.

Putin's popularity rating had already begun

climbing as a result of the Winter Olympics in

Sochi, with even Kremlin-critical pollsters

reporting 67 percent approval. Now, that

number is approaching an astonishing 80

percent. But what does it mean? Is the

"reunification" with Crimea merely the last

twitch of a former Soviet superpower as its

successor state Russia rebels against a future

as a less meaningful regional power?

Or is it the beginning of a wave of re-

conquests from a country that has seen itself

for centuries as a hegemonic power in Eastern

Europe? Is Putin a neo-imperialist or is he just a

national leader with his back to the wall, one

who is merely interested in protecting his

country's security interests?

Specter of War

The world has changed since last week. The

Ukraine crisis represents the most recent

culmination of an extended process of

estrangement between Russia and the West.

The biggest country in the world will now likely

turn its attentions more to China and India.

In Europe, meanwhile, the specter of war has

returned, according to European Parliament

President Martin Schulz.

"Ever since Putin's speech at the Munich

Security Conference in 2007, everyone should

have known that Russia would no longer

accept Western games within its sphere of

influence," says Fyodor Lukyanov, Chairman of

the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and

Defense Policy in Moscow. "But the West never

took Putin seriously and never developed a

strategy to deal with Russia's legitimate

interests."

The West, says Lukyanov, disregarded every

initiative from Moscow to discuss a new

security regime for Europe, constantly

suspecting that Russia was seeking to drive a

wedge between Europe and the United States.

Putin's proxy, former President Dmitry

Medvedev, even presented a draft for a

European security treaty in 2009, one which

addressed territorial disputes and renounced

the use of violence. "We are now paying the

price for not having sat down at the table

then," Lukyanov says.

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Now, when the US and EU threaten to turn

away from Russia, few in Moscow are

particularly impressed. Aside from a couple of

billion-dollar deals that benefited both sides,

people close to Putin say, the only approach

from the West consisted in NATO's steady

eastward advance. Instead of appreciation for

Gorbachev's having ushered in a peaceful end

to the Cold War, the Russian view holds, the

West has sought to waltz all the way into Red

Square.

The view from the windows of the Kremlin is

first and foremost a geo-political one. During

Soviet times, the distance between the Russian

capital and the Western military alliance was

1,800 kilometers (1,120 miles). Were Ukraine to

become a member of NATO, as the US has

long desired, this distance would be reduced

to less than 500 kilometers. The Russian military

is afraid that they would lose once and for all

the strategic distance that allowed the country

to survive the invasions of both Napoleon and

Hitler.

This fear is partially the result of the traumatic,

post-Cold War reordering of Eastern Europe.

Eight years after the Soviet Union's collapse,

Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary

joined NATO. In 2004, they were followed by

Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and the

three Baltic states; in 2009, Albania and

Croatia followed suit. When NATO intervened

in the Kosovo War by bombing Belgrade in 1999,

Russia was furious; Serbia had been a close

ally of Moscow's for centuries. In 2008, US

President George W. Bush's proposal to extend

NATO membership to Georgia and Ukraine was

seen by Russia as a humiliation.

Plenty of Options

Now, Putin is releasing his people from their

collective feeling of shame. "If you compress a

spring all the way to its limit, it will snap back

hard," the Russian president said during his

address in the Kremlin last Tuesday.

Putin has a decisive advantage in the struggle

for Ukraine: He has the initiative. He acts and

the West reacts. And Moscow has plenty of

options.

The first option involves Putin making no further

advances, an eventuality that many in the West

quietly see as the best way to end the crisis. In

exchange for Western toleration of Russia's

Crimean land grab, Putin would refrain from

meddling in eastern Ukraine and would still be

able to bask in the admiration of the Russian

people.

But there are other options available. Putin

could use pro-Russian groups, economic

pressure and his own secret service to

destabilize Ukraine to such a degree that it

plunges into civil war. For such a scenario, the

weak and chaotic government and parliament

in Kiev are ideal partners, not to mention the

radical nationalists who rose to prominence

during the Maidan demonstrations. Indeed, the

divisions within Ukraine are already prominent.

It was only due to intense pressure exerted by

Berlin and Brussels that the acting government

in Kiev abstained from signing a law that would

have prohibited Ukrainian regions from making

Russian a second official language. The

planned measure had triggered outrage in

eastern Ukraine.

One-quarter of all Ukrainian exports go to

Russian, with 2.9 million Ukrainian workers in

Russia having sent $3 billion (€2.17 billion) to

relatives back home last year, an amount

equivalent to roughly 10 percent of the

country's budget. A Russian boycott would

likely mean a rapid end to the current Ukrainian

government, unless the US and Europe were to

jump in with a hefty aid package.

As such, Putin could simply play for time in the

hopes that sooner or later Ukraine will simply

fall into his lap like a ripe fruit -- perhaps even

a Ukraine bloated by Western aid. Under no

circumstances, however, will Putin simply leave

Ukraine to the West.

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Some close to Putin even believe that the

Russian president would be willing to go to war

to prevent that from happening.

Other Regions?

Hardliners in the Kremlin are urging Putin not to

stop at Crimea, arguing that areas that belong

to Russia anyway should be reunited with the

motherland. Never before, they say, has the

opportunity been quite as auspicious. Putin's

reputation among the Western elite is already

at a low point and NATO would certainly not

risk a nuclear war on Ukraine's account. Kremlin

leaders are fully aware that Germany's

willingness to make sacrifices on behalf of, for

example, the Russian-speaking industrial city of

Donetsk is rather limited.

"Russia should support the pro-Russian areas in

southern and eastern Ukraine and establish a

line of security from Kharkiv to Odessa, without

absorbing these areas into the Russian

Federation," advises political scientist

Alexander Nagorny. A referendum could then

transform Ukraine into a kind of federal state.

Moscow would have influence in Kiev, a NATO

membership for Ukraine would be prevented

and a bloody war avoided.

The West is now attempting to force Putin to

back down by way of sanctions. It is a strategy

that is much more comfortable for the US than

it is for Europe, with just 1 percent of American

trade being conducted with Russia and a lack

of reliance on Russia oil and natural gas.

Germany's trade with Russia, by contrast,

represents 3 percent of Berlin's imports and

exports, with a value of €76.5 billion. One-third

of Germany's oil and natural gas imports come

from Russia. It has always sounded good when

EU politicians insisted that Russia cannot be

allowed to have a say in Ukraine's future. But it

was never particularly realistic.

When it comes to Ukraine, Putin feels deceived

by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose

power instincts he admires, as well as by the

US. "The West's true aim is that of toppling the

bothersome Putin," says the Moscow-based

political scientist Sergei Markov, one of Putin's

most loyal acolytes. That is why initial sanctions

targeted the president's billionaire friends. The

West, he says, is trying to turn Russia's financial

elite against Putin.

'Can't Treat Us Like That'

But on the short- and mid-term, at least,

sanctions are likely to strengthen Putin. His

propaganda machine will present any

economic difficulties as being the fault of the

West, which will likely draw together the

country's anti-Western, conservative majority.

Even in Moscow, where never-published

surveys from a year ago showed that Putin had

lost his majority, sanctions will be seen as yet

another indignity visited on Russia by the West.

"First the German and Polish foreign ministers

make appearances on the Maidan, and now

they want to punish us for no longer being

willing to simply accept everything," says one

senior bank manager who has never voted for

Putin in her life. She wants Putin "to deliver a

strong response so that the West understands

that you can't treat us like that."

Russia, as one proverb would have it, has great

patience, but its response will be all the more

severe. Russian confronts pressure with

pressure and external critique has traditionally

been met with defiance. In 1830, France angrily

protested against czarist Russia's violent

crushing of an uprising in areas including

present-day western Ukraine and the Baltic

states. Paris even threatened military action.

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Renowned Russian poet Alexander Pushkin

penned a response in a poem entitled "To the

Slanderers of Russia." "What are you sounding

off about, you orators of nations? Why do you

threaten Russia with anathema? Leave off: It is

a battle of Slavs amongst themselves, a

domestic, ancient quarrel, already weighed by

fate. A question you will not decide."

Russia's recent reaction to European and US

sanctions was not dissimilar. Putin announced

that he intended to open an account with

Rossiya Bank, which had been targeted by

Washington, and Kremlin advisors expressed

pride at having been included on the list. Fully

353 of the 450 parliamentarians in the Duma

published a request that they too be added.

Not much would seem to have changed in

Russia since the times of Pushkin.

This article was published on Spiegel Online and can

be accessed at

https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-look-

at-the-crimea-crisis-from-the-perspective-of-the-

kremlin-a-960446.html

What role does nationalism play in the

Russian view of Crimea?

How can theories of international relations

such as structural realism help us to make

sense of Putin's decision making in regard to

the annexation of Crimea?

Questions to consider:

VIDEO: INSIDE STORY

WHAT HAS RUSSIA GAINED FROM ANNEXINGCRIMEA?

How has Russia gained from its annexation

of Crimea? What were the costs? Overall,

was it worth it?

What has been the role of sanctions

throughout this period and what can we say

about the effectiveness of these sanctions?

To what extent does Russia have legitimacy

in Crimea?

This Al-Jazeera English report, presented by

Hazem Sika on the fifth anniversary of Russia's

annexation of Crimea, explores what Russia

has gained from this and discusses the issue

with Ilya Ponomarev - exiled Russian politican;

Mark Sleboda - international relations and

security analyst Oleksiy Haran - professor at

the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla

Academy.

Click the image on the left to watch the video

Questions to consider:

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THE LEGITIMACY OF RUSSIA'SACTIONS IN UKRAINE

IN THIS POST FOR LSE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY, BJÖRN ALEXANDER DÜBEN ANALYSES THE RECENT OUTBREAKOFCONFLICT IN UKRAINE. IN THE ARTICLE, DR DÜBEN EXAMINES RUSSIA’S MILITARY CAMPAIGN IN UKRAINE ANDITSANNEXATION OF UKRAINIAN TERRITORY. DR DÜBEN ARGUES THAT RUSSIA’S CLAIMS TO PARTS OF UKRAINEAND ITSANNEXATION OF TERRITORY IN THE COUNTRY HAS LITTLE BASIS IN HISTORY AND THE PARAMETERS OF

INTERNATIONALLAW.

When Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signed

the treaty on the ‘Restitution of Crimea and

Sevastopol inside the Russian Federation’ on

18 March 2014, Russia became the first state in

continental Europe to have annexed part of

another state’s territory since the 1940s. The

outbreak, shortly thereafter, of separatist

violence in eastern Ukraine made it evident

that Moscow’s territorial pretensions did not

exhaust themselves in the annexation of

Crimea. The Russian government has

consistently defended its startling moves in

Ukraine, denying all accusations that its

encroachments on the country’s sovereignty

have been illegitimate. Does it have any valid

grounds for doing so?

From a legal perspective, the answer is clear:

Having forcibly occupied parts of a sovereign

country’s territory, having formally annexed the

occupied territory, and having flooded another

part of the country with heavy weaponry and

irregular combatants (‘volunteers’ who were

permitted to cross the border in large numbers,

as well as regular soldiers), Moscow has acted

in violation of some of the most basic

principles of international law.

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The clarity of this legal breach was

underscored in dozens of UN Security Council

sessions devoted to the Ukraine crisis, where

Russia’s ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, found

himself completely isolated in his legal

interpretation of the unfolding events. Russia’s

moves in Ukraine were not formally approved

by more than a handful of states, and even

some of Russia’s closest allies have refused to

recognise Crimea’s de facto shift injurisdiction.

Russia’s actions also violate its pledge in the

1994 Budapest Memorandum to respect

Ukrainian sovereignty within its existing

borders.

Moscow repeatedly invoked the ‘responsibility

to protect’, an increasingly popular concept in

the West, as a justification for its intervention in

Crimea. However, two factors set Russia’s

Ukrainian intervention apart from previous

interventions carried out by the West: For one,

the formal annexation of territory, which is

entirely unjustifiable in terms of the

‘responsibility to protect’. And secondly, the

fact that there was objectively no humanitarian

crisis that would have warranted invoking this

responsibility. Notwithstanding the alarmist

news broadcast on Russia’s state-controlled

media networks, at the time when Crimea was

seized by Russian forces the peninsula was at

peace and there was no discernible threat to

the lives and well-being of its inhabitants (a

fact that was later confirmed by independent

United Nations investigations).

More recently, arguments focused on Russia’s

‘responsibility to protect’ have featured

particularly prominently in Moscow’s demands

with regard to eastern Ukraine and the

ongoing conflict there. Unlike in Crimea, the

humanitarian crisis in eastern Ukraine has been

very real indeed. But Russian irregular

combatants were apparently involved in

spurring the conflict in eastern Ukraine from

the very beginning, when heavily armed

gunmen first began to seize administrative

buildings across eastern Ukraine in April 2014,

and there can be little doubt that Moscow has

been stoking it ever since. Moscow has thus

done its part to initiate and aggravate the very

humanitarian crisis that it has since used as a

justification for threatening further

intervention.

Spurious though Moscow’s claims for a

‘responsibility to protect’ may be, its

intervention in Ukraine has ultimately been

based in equal measure on Russia’s purported

historical, ethnic, and cultural claims to Crimea

and (less explicitly) to large stretches of south-

eastern Ukraine frequently referred to as

‘Novorossiya’. Few recent conflicts have been

as centrally focused on historical claims and

(mis)representations as the Ukraine crisis.

Among the Russian public it is commonly

regarded as self-evident that Crimea has

historically been Russian territory, but also that

all of Ukraine is in essence a historical part of

Russia – a brother state that owes its existence

to a mere accident of history. Leaving all legal

concerns aside for a moment, could the case

be made that Russia has a legitimate historical

and cultural claim to Crimea, or any other part

of Ukraine? What does the Russian case for its

interventions in Ukraine look like when taking

into account historical and cultural factors

alone?

Crimea: A “primordially Russian land”

The Crimean peninsula has traditionally had a

special status within modern Ukraine. Unlike

any other part of the country, it was organised

as an ‘Autonomous Republic’, enjoying a

certain degree of political autonomy. Prior to

its formal transfer to the Ukrainian Soviet

Socialist Republic in February 1954, Crimea

had been a part of the Russian Soviet

Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) within

the Soviet Union. Among Russians, it is a

commonly-held assumption that Crimea has

‘always’ been a part of Russia.

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Vladimir Putin himself, during his 18 March

address to parliament marking Crimea’s

annexation to Russia, declared that “in

people’s hearts and minds, Crimea has always

been an integral part of Russia”. The following

month, an expedition of the Russian Military

Historical Society visited the peninsula, with

one of their stated intentions being “to remind

the global community that Crimea has always

been Russian.” As recently as late October,

Nikolay Ryzhkov, a prominent member of

Russia’s upper house of parliament, claimed

that Crimea “since ancient times … was

primordially Russian land”. This view is now

extremely common in Russia. It is also totally

false.

In actual fact, the Crimean peninsula, for most

of its history, had nothing to do with Russia.

Since antiquity, Crimea’s mountainous south-

eastern shores have been dominated by Tauri,

Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Venetian, and

Genoese principalities, before they were

conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1475. The

vast inland steppes of Crimea were ruled and

populated by Scythians, Greeks, Goths, Huns,

Bulgars, Khazars, Mongols, and Karaites, and

eventually, from 1441, formed the heartland of

the Crimean Tatar Khanate, a tributary of the

Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans and the Tatars

continued to rule over their respective parts of

the peninsula until 1783.

Throughout the pre-modern era, Crimea’s only

substantial historical connection to either

Russia or Ukraine was the fact that the inland

section of the peninsula was controlled by the

Kievan Rus’ – the precursor state of both

modern Ukraine and Russia – from the mid-10th

to the early 13th century. At the onset of Kievan

rule (which did not extend to the mountainous

south-eastern parts of the peninsula that

contained its most important settlements and

ports and remained under Byzantine control),

the Crimean city of Chersonesos, now a part of

Sevastopol, was the site where the leader of

the Rus’, Vladimir I. of Kiev, converted to

Christianity.

This was a seminal event in the development of

the Eastern Orthodox churches (both in Russia

and in Ukraine), since Vladimir then oversaw

the conversion of the entire Kievan Rus’ to the

Orthodox faith. Notwithstanding the symbolic

importance of this event, which was duly

invoked by Vladimir Putin in his annexation

speech on 18 March, the period of rule by the

Kievan Rus’ did not leave a deep cultural or

political imprint on Crimea. In the centuries

following the demise of the Rus’ in the 1200s,

the peninsula was the site of sporadic Cossack

raids, but it remained firmly in Tatar and

Ottoman hands. Throughout its history, Crimea

has thus been a crucible of cultures. It was not

until 1783 that it became Russian territory,

following Catherine the Great’s victory over

the Ottomans and her conquest of the Tatar

Khanate, and it remained Russian for the next

170 years.

In 1954, the Soviet leadership transferred

Crimea from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian Soviet

Socialist Republic (UkrSSR). In spite of frequent

claims that the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev,

bypassing all legal norms, single-handedly

assigned the peninsula to Ukraine, the transfer

was in fact carried out legally and in

accordance with the 1936 Soviet Constitution

(which, admittedly, was in essence a legal

fiction). The measure was approved by the

Presidium of the Soviet Communist Party,

paving the way for an authorising resolution of

the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, which

formally sealed the transfer; by all

appearances, both the RSFSR and the UkrSSR

gave their consent via their republic

parliaments. Vladimir Putin’s claim, during his 18

March address to parliament, that the decision

to transfer Crimea “was made in clear violation

of the constitutional norms that were in place

even then” is patently false.The 1954 transfer of

Crimea was most likely motivated both by

tactical considerations on the part of

Khrushchev (who was then involved in an

internal power struggle for the leadership of

the Communist Party) and by economic and

infrastructural considerations; the Meeting of

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the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the

USSR on 19 February 1954 where the transfer

was finalised made reference, among other

things, to “the commonality of the economy,

the territorial proximity, and the close

economic and cultural ties between the

Crimean Oblast’ and the Ukrainian SSR”.

For the next six decades, Crimea was formally

a part of Ukraine. Its ties to Kiev always

remained somewhat loose, but much the same

can be said about its ties to Russia throughout

the preceding seventeen decades when it had

been a part of the Russian Empire and the

RSFSR. Throughout most of these 170 years,

while it was politically controlled by Russia,

Crimea had remained culturally distinct, and its

cultural connection with Russia was relatively

tenuous. In spite of substantial Russian

colonisation efforts throughout the 19th

century, around 1900 the Tatars still formed the

largest ethnic group on the peninsula. The

demographic pre-eminence of ethnic Russians

in Crimea was only firmly solidified following

the mass deportation of the entire Crimean

Tatar population, as well as the smaller

populations of ethnic Armenians, Bulgars, and

Greeks, at Joseph Stalin’s behest in 1944. This

de facto ethnic cleansing of the peninsula’s

native inhabitants led to the death of between

20 and 50 percent of the Crimean Tatar

community; the remainder were only able to

return to Crimea in the 1990s.

Crimea has long occupied a special place in

the Russian national consciousness, but this

should not obscure the fact that, while its

historical and cultural connection to Ukraine

has been weak, its historical and cultural

connection to Russia has scarcely been any

stronger. Even a cursory glance at its history

reveals that the recurrent proclamations of

various Russian officials regarding Crimea’s

“primordial” historical and cultural importance

for Russia range from vast exaggeration to

downright fantasy. Given that the Kremlin has

invoked such claims in the attempt to justify a

grave violation of international law and

intrusion upon another sovereign state, it is

important to spotlight how little they

correspond to historical reality.

Taken from

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lseih/2015/03/04/does-

russia-have-a-legitimate-claim-to-parts-of-ukraine/

Russia's Little Green Men Enter Ukraine1.

Russia has invaded the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine

and taken over its civilian and military infrastructure.

Not a shot has been fired so far, but Russia is using its

superior force to intimidate Ukrainian troops in

an attempt to get them to surrender.

Russia claims it wants to stabilize the situation on the

peninsula, which has a large Russian population, but

Ukraine's new government regards the move as an

occupation of its sovereign territory.

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RUSSIAN ROULETTEVICE NEWS DISPATCHES FROM CRIMEA

2. Sneaking Into A Ukrainian Military Base

Angry crowds of Russia supporters as well as Russian

military units surrounded and entered Ukraine's Naval

High Command in Sevastopol blocking all exits and

demanded that its officers switch allegiance to

Crimea's new Kremlin-aligned government. Naval

Command has so far remained mostly loyal to Kiev, but

its fall would represent a significant psychological

victory for Russian forces.

CLICK ON THE VIDEOS TO WATCH THE REPORTS

3. Getting Stuck on a Ukrainian Battleship

The blockade by Russia of Ukrainian military

installations in Crimea continues. VICE News

correspondent Simon Ostrovsky spoke with families of

personnel barricaded inside, who complained about

the difficulty of getting food past the pro-Russian

protesters outside. Russia's supporters explained why

they want Crimea to separate from Ukraine, andSimon

negotiated his way through a Russian checkpoint to

interview an officer on the Slavutych, a Ukrainian

battleship stuck in the harbor of Sevastopol.

17WWW.GLOPOIB.WORDPRESS.COM

4. Ship Sinked to Block Port

With Crimea's parliament voting to secede from

Ukraine, Russia's blockade of Ukrainian military

installations in the peninsula has moved seaside. The

Russian Black Sea Fleet prepared a special operation:

the sinking of a decommissioned ship in the middle of

Donuzlav Bay in order to prevent traffic in and out of

Crimea's port.

VICE News correspondent Simon Ostrovsky noticed

that the unidentified men in military fatigues had

suddenly disappeared from the bases — locals said

that they'd gone to obstruct a mission of observers

from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in

Europe (OSCE) from entering the region.

5. Serbian War Veterans Operating in

Crimea

As Russians stream into Crimea to help wrestle it away

from Ukraine, an unlikely group of Serbian war

veterans, who have experience fighting in Bosnia,

Croatia and Kosovo, are turning up at the checkpoints

too. VICE News reporter Simon Ostrovsky follows

Russian troops as they continue their occupation of

Ukrainian military bases, and learns about unidentified

men in masks attacking journalists reporting on the

situation in the peninsula.

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6. Reporter''s Confrontation at Ukrainian

Checkpoints

In dispatch six, VICE News correspondent Simon

Ostrovsky travels to the Kherson region of mainland

Ukraine to both the Ukrainian and Russian checkpoints.

At the Ukrainian checkpoint, Simon goes inside one of

their tanks, and speaks to the commander, who says

that despite his Russian blood he will defend all

invaders. But at the Russian checkpoint, the exchange

isn't quite as cordial.

8. Civilians Clash Over Crimea Referendum

As Russia moves 10,000 troops to the Ukrainian border

and Crimea prepares for a secession referendum,

tension remains high all over Ukraine, especially in the

East.

On the night of Thursday, March 13 VICE News reporter

Robert King captured this scene on the streets of

Donetsk, where a large group of pro-Russian activists

attacked a group of pro-Ukrainian demonstrators

calling for unity

7. Pro-Russia & Pro-Ukraine Protesters Face

Off

In dispatch 7, Simon is back in the Crimean capital of

Simferopol, where both pro and anti-Russia

demonstrations are dividing the region. Pro-Russia

protesters believe that the country's strong economy

will help Crimea, while anti-Russia protesters feel that

their land has been taken over by bandits.

9. Protest Turns Fatal

With Crimea's referendum quickly approaching, tension

has spread across Ukraine, especially in the east.

Before Thursday's protests in Donetsk escalated into

violence, VICE News correspondent Robert King

interviewed pro-Russia and pro-Ukraine demonstrators

about their opinions on the standoff