Sorry, Neocons: Crimea is Russia
Still proclaiming Crimea to be Ukrainian territory, Zelensky and the West are treading dangerous ground.
In today’s discourse surrounding the war in Ukraine, you will often hear the incessantly repeated notion that Crimea belongs to Ukraine. Supporters of Ukraine often parrot this assertion, despite extraordinary evidence to the contrary pointing to the fact that Crimea never really was Ukraine’s in the first place.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government emphatically insists that for any negotiations to occur with Moscow, the latter must first completely withdraw its troops from all the territories it has occupied, including the Crimean Peninsula it annexed in 2014.
“We cannot imagine Ukraine without Crimea,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a recent CNN interview. “And while Crimea is under the Russian occupation, it means only one thing: the war is not over yet.”
Ukraine’s Western partners also agree that Crimea is Ukrainian territory. “Crimea is Ukraine,” national security advisor Jake Sullivan declared in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper. Although the U.S. has reportedly warned Kyiv not to attack inside Russian territory, the Biden administration has come out in support of Kyiv conducting operations within its “internationally recognized borders,” regardless of whether or not they are controlled by Moscow. This includes Crimea.
As the New York Times reported in early January, the Biden administration is backing Ukrainian attacks purportedly to leave the peninsula in a “threatened” position, in part to “strengthen” Ukraine’s hand at future negotiations with Moscow. Four months ago, senior U.S. official Victoria Nuland disclosed that “we are supporting” Ukrainian attacks on “legitimate targets” within Crimea.
In order to better understand the current clouds of controversy hovering over Crimea, we must first look at its history.
A Brief History
For much of its history, Crimea has been a long-sought-after prize by various imperial regimes. The peninsula lies between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, making it a valuable possession for any expansive state. As such, Crimea was consistently caught in the crosshairs of the world’s greatest empires and their influence, which include the Greeks, the Romans, the Mongols, the Ottomans, and lastly, the Russians.
Beginning in the late 17th century, the Ottoman Empire and Russia engaged in a series of wars for dominance in the Black Sea region. These conflicts between the two vying empires would persist for the following two centuries. One such conflict, the Russo-Turkish War of 1768—1774, ended with the Ottomans ceding to Russia the port of Azov and military fortresses on the eastern end of the Crimean Peninsula. In 1783, Catherine the Great annexed Crimea, thus incorporating the peninsula into Russia. Her subsequent victories allowed Russia to create its vital Black Sea Fleet.
In 1954, Nikita Khrushchev transferred Crimea to his homeland, Ukraine. Ever since the transfer, the legitimacy and constitutionality of the move have long been called into question. At the time, Crimeans did not ponder the matter significantly, as Ukraine was then a Soviet republic. As far as the ethnic Russian majority of Crimea was concerned, they were still part of the Soviet Union and united with Russia.
In January of 1991, as the U.S.S.R. was dissipating, the people of Crimea held a referendum on whether to become an autonomous republic with its own constitution unattached to Ukraine’s rule. Ultimately, over 93% of Crimeans voted “yes” on the referendum. Both Ukraine and Russia recognized the will of the Crimean people, and Crimea was once again established as an autonomous republic within the Soviet Union. But, as the Soviet Union completely collapsed later in the year, Crimea was passed to the rule of Ukraine, then a newly independent country.
The question of Crimean independence was ignored in the wake of the collapse. At any rate, Crimea should have joined the international community as an independent country. The 1991 referendum was abundantly clear: Crimea was not to be under Ukraine’s rule in any fashion. Instead, the peninsula was forcibly transformed into Ukrainian territory, and the rest of the world seemingly agreed with it.
In the subsequent aftermath, the issue of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and its only warm water naval base at Sevastopol became a controversial topic for discussion between Kiev and Moscow. In 1997, Russia and Ukraine negotiated the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership, along with the Partition Treaty on the Status and Conditions of the Black Sea Fleet. These treaties solidified the Russian naval presence in Sevastopol, divided the bases and armaments between the two powers, and protected Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
After a U.S. government-backed coup overthrew democratically elected Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovich in 2014, in what became known as the Maidan coup, ethnic Russians in Crimea were demonstrably livid with the removal of a leader they overwhelmingly supported. Moreover, the blatant anti-Russian mindset of the newly installed government was perceived as an alarming threat to not only Russians in Crimea but also to Russians in eastern Ukraine.
As a result, pro-Russian crowds took the matter into their own hands. They soon occupied government buildings, held massive rallies, and elected new leaders. Shortly thereafter, the Crimean Parliament unanimously voted to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. In addition, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops to Crimea to protect its large ethnic Russian population.
On March 16, a referendum was once again held to determine Crimea’s future. Significantly, 97% of voters voted “yes” and supported the movement to join Russia. Crowds in droves celebrated the result of the 2014 referendum, many of them flying the Russian flag and the flag of the Soviet Union. Two days later, Putin signed a treaty incorporating Crimea into the Russian Federation. “In people's hearts and minds, Crimea has always been an integral part of Russia," he said.
Though the referendum has had its legitimacy and legality questioned vociferously by the West, there can be no denying that Crimea is majority ethnic Russian and overwhelmingly pro-Russia. It is no secret that its people wish to be with Russia. U.S. government-funded sources, such as Gallup, have vindicated the findings of the referendum in 2014 through multiple studies and polls.
“Crimeans were and remain mostly in favor of the Russian annexation,” Foreign Affairs noted in 2020. “That popular sentiment complicates the West’s prevailing view of the seizure of Crimea as an aggressive land grab.” The West, led by the United States, nonetheless continues to erroneously misinterpret what occurred in Crimea as a “Russian invasion.”
Others are more sensible observers. “There's a reason why there was not an armed invasion of Crimea,” former President Barack Obama said in a recent interview with CNN, “because Crimea was full of a lot of Russian speakers and there was some sympathy to the view that Russia was representing its interests.”
In February of this year, NBC News traveled to Crimea to discern where certain individuals stood on the current war. One individual, 73-year-old Praskovya Baranova, said, “We will all put on uniforms and will go to the border to defend ourselves” in the event of a Ukrainian attack. “Her comments,” according to NBC, “echoed those of most people” they spoke to while in Crimea.
The Importance of Crimea from Russia’s Perspective
NATO’s relentless expansion eastward after the fall of the Soviet Union caused great alarm for Russia. An understandable concern soon arose about Ukraine’s potential partnership in the alliance. One worry was that if Ukraine were to join NATO, Russia would be forced to dismantle its Black Sea Fleet, and Crimea, recognized as being Ukraine, would therefore become NATO’s playground. The Black Sea would transform into NATO’s Lake. In essence, NATO would possess dominance in the region right on Russia’s doorstep.
As Ukraine was offered a pathway to NATO membership in 2008, Russia became even more aware of the emerging threat to its national security. Once Yanukovich was overthrown in a Western-backed coup six years later, Putin felt the dire need to act immediately to protect Russia’s security concerns. Crimea was vastly important. As such, he secured permission from the Russian Parliament to send troops to Crimea to guard the ethnic Russian population and to back up the already sizable troop presence there.
By securing Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol and admitting Crimea into the Russian Federation, Putin more or less brushed aside a great threat from his vantage point. In the process, the Crimean people received what the vast majority of them voted for.
Disregarding Reality
When contemplating the history, past and recent, it is clear that the will of the Crimean people is to be with Russia, not Ukraine. The referendums of 1991 and 2014 prove this to be true. Nevertheless, the neoconservatives running U.S. foreign policy have abnegated the reality of the situation by continuing to dishonestly construe Crimea as Ukrainian territory.
There is a unique absurdity in that the people who lecture us the most on the importance of “democracy” and the “will of the people” reject these principles as soon as they become unfavorable to their nefarious goals within the world of geopolitical affairs. Indeed, the Western narrative regarding the war in Ukraine hinges on “preserving democracy,” and yet, leaders in the West push aside the indefatigable will of Crimeans to be part of Russia.
Sullivan and Zelensky’s remarks regarding Crimea sound all the more absurd when considering the fact that Russia will never abandon Crimea. Leaving Crimea would entail Moscow abdicating its Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, which is integral to the defense of southern Russia. Moreover, Ukraine does not wield the firepower or the manpower sufficient to overtake the heavily guarded peninsula, and even if it did, the population that resides in Crimea overwhelmingly despises Kyiv, creating even more of an arduous task for its potential occupiers.
Still proclaiming Crimea to be part of Ukraine, Kyiv and its neoconservative allies are disregarding reality itself. The Crimean people are firmly behind Russia and their support is not eroding anytime soon. That, along with Crimea’s long and expansive history, demonstrates an inseparable connection with Russia. Zelensky’s not-so-subtle promise to drag the war on until Crimea is in Ukraine’s hands ensures more unnecessary death and destruction for his country and armed forces.
SecState Blinken and CNN propagandist Jake Tapper are members of the liberal-fascist Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), along with most other players on the "Biden team". Blinken and NatSec advisor Sullivan are also members of the Trilateral Commission, a CFR affiliate.
Billionaire Larry Fink of BlackRock, profiting from both the war and the "reconstruction", is a CFR director and a Trilateral member. Blinken, Tapper, and Fink are also Jewish, along with Victoria Nuland (married to CFR neocon Robert Kagan), and comrade Zelensky.
During the 19th century much of what is now called "Ukraine" was a western region of the Russian empire, including Crimea and Odessa, known as the "Pale of Settlement" and birthplace of the Zionist movement. See article and map: jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-pale-of-settlement
"From the 1880s until the 1920s the Jewish community of Odesa was the second largest in the whole of Russia... By 1910 over 80% of grain export companies were Jewish-owned [and] 70% of the banks of Odesa were administered by them... From the inception of the Ḥibbat Zion movement, Odesa served as its chief center... Jewish emigration from Russia to Eretz Israel (Palestine) also passed through Odesa, which became the "Gateway to Zion". -- jewishvirtuallibrary.org/odessa