The US peace proposal for Russia and Ukraine includes a point on recognizing Russian sovereignty over Crimea, Axios reports. The peninsula has been part of independent Ukraine since 1991. Russia calls the 2014 annexation of Crimea “restoring historical justice.”
Crimea became part of independent Ukraine in 1991 with the collapse of the USSR. However, as The New York Times stressed on Thursday, the region “maintained close ties to Russia, including through its tourism industry, the majority of its population was Russian-speaking, and Russian nationalists had laid claim to the area since the collapse of the Soviet Union.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky has rejected the possibility of legally recognizing the occupation of Crimea, emphasizing that it would violate the Ukrainian constitution. On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump said that Zelensky's exclusion of legal recognition of the annexation of the peninsula is very harmful to peace negotiations. He said that no one is asking Ukraine to recognize the annexation, but at the same time pointed out that Ukraine has not put up armed resistance to the occupation of the peninsula.
There is an ongoing debate in the media, including Polish media, about the potential “+return+ of Crimea to Russia”. Former Prime Minister Leszek Miller, asked on Thursday on Radio ZET whether “Ukraine should agree to return Crimea in exchange for peace”, replied “yes”. “People are able to change any borders in the appropriate historical and diplomatic process”, added the former Prime Minister.
Little green men and the 2014 referendum
The Crimean Peninsula, south of Kherson Oblast, was annexed by Russia in March 2014 in a military intervention and a “referendum” that Ukrainian and Western authorities have deemed a violation of international law. It followed the victory of the pro-Western Revolution of Dignity in Kiev, which led to the overthrow of pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
In February 2014, so-called green men, armed men in unmarked uniforms, took over local administration buildings on the peninsula. Moscow long denied that its soldiers had participated in the annexation of Crimea, and when it finally admitted it, it described them as “polite people” who had rushed to help the locals.
On March 16, Russians held a “referendum” on the territory of Crimea on the status of the peninsula. Later, Vladimir Putin announced the “annexation” of Crimea to the Russian Federation. Most of the international community considered the “referendum” illegal, and Western countries imposed sanctions on Moscow. Eleven countries, including Nicaragua, opposed the resolution of the UN General Assembly condemning the referendum and the annexation of Crimea.
Russia denies that it was an annexation of Ukrainian territory and calls the “annexation” of Crimea “restoration of historical justice.”
After the occupation of Crimea, the Russians supported separatist movements in parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine, where the creation of two self-proclaimed people's republics was announced in the spring of 2014: Donetsk and Luhansk. Then, in September 2022, Vladimir Putin unilaterally, also illegally, announced the annexation of four regions in the east and south of Ukraine – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson.
Ukrainian authorities repeat that the country is not ready to lose Crimea or Donbas in the name of a ceasefire and peace. “Crimea is Ukraine,” Ukrainians repeat. As part of international efforts to regain Crimea, Kiev established the Crimean Platform in 2021.
In March 2022, 80% of respondents to a survey conducted by the independent Rating group said Ukraine should do everything in its power to return Crimea to Kyiv's control. Over time, some Ukrainians accepted the possibility of some territorial concessions in exchange for peace. A survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology conducted in 2024 showed that 32% of Ukrainians were in favor of considering giving up some territories to Russia.
Kiev accuses Moscow of turning the peninsula into its military base after occupying Crimea. According to Ukrainian authorities, the Russians began actively militarizing the peninsula and the Black Sea and Azov region after 2014. The Crimean Platform estimates that Russia has tripled the number of military personnel in Crimea from 12,500 to 40,000. Russia has incorporated Crimea into the Southern Military District.
According to Ukrainian authorities, Russian repression and persecution of residents in Crimea continue unabated. Russia uses repression as an instrument to “suppress the will” of Crimean residents, to force them out of the territory of the annexed peninsula, Refat Chubarov, chairman of the Mejlis (self-government) of the Crimean Tatars, told PAP in a recent interview. As he reported, at least 227 people are currently deprived of their freedom, most of them already convicted. Russia has recognized the Mejlis itself as an extremist organization and banned its activities.
Tatars in Crimea
The Tatars, who were deported from Crimea in 1944 on accusations of collaboration with the Third Reich, returned there only in the mid-1980s and became citizens after Ukraine gained independence. Before the annexation, they made up 12-15 percent of the peninsula's population. By boycotting the referendum, they exposed themselves to repression from Moscow. In a recent conversation with PAP, Chubarov warned that Russia's ceding of annexed Crimea would practically be putting a cross on the future of the Ukrainian state and consenting to the annihilation of the Crimean Tatar nation.
The Ukrainian authorities also accuse Russia of pursuing a policy of changing the demographic situation in Crimea. The territory was primarily left by ethnic Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars due to the repression. According to estimates by the Crimean Platform, around 50,000 people have left the peninsula. At the same time, residents of Russia are being brought to Crimea. According to the head of the Mejlis, since 2014, Russia has resettled almost a million of its citizens in Crimea. The peninsula is currently being forcibly issued passports. The authorities in Kiev estimate that Russia has “exchanged” over a third of the population of Crimea during the ten years of occupation.
After the occupation, some people with Ukrainian views left Crimea, but many older people or people with pro-Russian views stayed there. The region is inhabited by about 2.5 million people.
In March, Ukrainian Navy Commander Oleksiy Neizhpapa stressed that the Ukrainian side was considering the possibility of another, third attack on the Crimean (Kerch) Bridge since the beginning of the Russian invasion, connecting the peninsula with Russia. Two previous Ukrainian strikes – in October 2022 and July 2023 – damaged the bridge's road and rail structures, which meant that the Russian army could no longer transport heavy railcars with military equipment by rail. Ukraine has repeatedly emphasized the illegal nature of this structure and claimed that it was a legitimate target for the attack. The head of Ukrainian Military Intelligence (HUR) Kyrylo Budanov reported on ongoing preparations to destroy the Crimean Bridge this year.
Russia is trying to prevent drone attacks and protect the bridge across the Kerch Strait. In the summer of 2024, barges began to be deployed on the southern side of the bridge, followed by floating buoys running parallel to the bridge.
Since the beginning of the occupation, Ukrainian guerrillas have been active on the peninsula. The most active organizations include the Yellow Ribbon, the Black Seagull, the Crimean Guerrillas, and the Atesh movement.
According to the media, the Europeans rule out recognizing the annexation of the peninsula, while experts emphasize that recognizing Crimea as Russian territory would be a concession to Putin, a defeat for Ukraine and the United States itself. It would also be unprecedented from the point of view of international law.
Natalia Dziurdzińska (PAP)
sun/ bst/ speak/
arch.
