Crimea was first settled in 7th century B.C. and is known in Greek mythology as Tauri or Tauris so it’s been around for a long time. There has never really been much stability in the area and its history is a complicated one. This article will focus on the recent history to try and make some sense out of what those crazy Russians and Ukrainians are up to. Russia or the USSR or the Soviet Union or whatever they were calling themselves at a given time were basically in control of Crimea until the Soviet Union split in 1991, when it officially became part of the newly independent Ukraine. (It had technically been part of the Ukraine since 1954 when then Russian president Nikita Khrushchev essentially gave it to Ukraine in what at the time seemed to be a rather inconsequential gesture, as both territories were part of the USSR anyway.) Prior to Crimea becoming part of Ukraine it played a very important role in World War II. The Nazi’s officially took Crimea in 1942 but were held up there for 247 days causing a critical delay and hampering the Nazi advancement to Stalingrad, a big part of why Hitler’s grandson doesn’t rule the world right now. When the Russians took it back in 1944 however, Stalin began his own phase of ethnic cleansing, deporting all non-Russians and especially the oldest inhabitants (the Tatars aka the Muslims) to Asia. At various times in the 1990’s Crimea attempted to become independent. In 1992 they declared themselves a republic and passed a constitution, and in 1993 they established a position of President. Mass terrorism ensued and the elections were cancelled. In 1994 a president was elected (Yuriy Meshkov) but the “government” quickly crumbled. The population to this day remains split over whether they should be under the control of Russia, Ukraine, or be independent. In 1997 it was agreed they were an autonomous state within Ukraine, although Russia refused to remove troops from certain areas. They have their own government whose chairman must be approved by Ukraine, and are under the jurisdiction of Ukrainian courts. At this point I bet you’re saying “who cares and why am I reading this?” Answer: Ukraine is one of the world’s largest producers of corn and wheat. This food gets to people’s mouths through Crimean ports. Crimea gets its water, electricity and most of its food from Ukraine, which is currently embroiled in a cluster-fuck. Secondly, Europe relies on Russia for a large percentage of its natural gas. Europe receives this gas through pipelines built throughout Ukraine. All of this is why Putin feels unrest in this area is bad for business and is seemingly poised to invade Crimea. It is also why Obama had to come out and say the US is against the invasion, (which is essentially a precursor to an invasion of Ukraine) which is political speak for we don’t support Putin but we’re really not going to do anything about it despite being morally and officially obligated to do something about it. In 1994 the USA, Russia, the UK, France, and China signed a pledge known as The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances in return for Ukraine giving up the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Russia would violate this agreement by sending troops into Crimea, which they seem likely to do – and the USA won’t do a damn thing about it because evidently we only sacrifice our troops in illegal wars in which we are the aggressors violating international law. Still don’t care? The price of a barrel of crude oil is steadily increasing as we speak.
Article By: Anthony Schiano
