Washington-brokered negotiations to end Russia’s war in Ukraine have largely boiled down to a diamond-shaped peninsula about the size of Massachusetts.
Crimea had been contested for centuries by the Greeks, Mongols and Ottomans before Russia illegally annexed it from Ukraine in 2014. Sitting at a geographic crossroads between Europe, Asia and the Middle East, the peninsula has vast trade and military significance — and is steeped in spiritual lore.
Though a deal was signed giving the United States access to some of Ukraine’s critical minerals, large disagreements between these parties and Russia continue to stymie the wider peace talks.
Crimea is the crux.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has rejected outright acknowledging Moscow’s control over it, while Russian President Vladimir Putin has insisted the peninsula is his.
In the middle, President Donald Trump has often been accused of siding with the latter, suggesting that Russia should keep Crimea as part of a deal he once said would take 24 hours to knock together but has in reality proved far harder.
According to legend, this is where Vladimir the Great, leader of the medieval state of Kievan Rus, converted to Orthodox Christianity. “But it’s not just that somebody was baptized there, or that it was the origin of Russian spirituality,” said Orysia Lutsevych, deputy director of the Russia and Eurasia program at London’s Chatham House think tank. “Crimea is a military asset for Russia.”
Indeed, Putin himself has described the peninsula as Russia’s “unsinkable aircraft carrier” — turning this erstwhile tourist haven into a garrison of fighter jets and missiles with which to attack Ukraine.
It also allowed him to harbor his formidable Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea’s largest city, and less than 200 miles from both Romania and Turkey, two key NATO members and allies of Washington in the region.
Ukraine has managed to fight back, wielding high-tech missiles and low-cost drones against the armada, forcing it to withdraw to the uncontested Russian port of Novorossiysk.
During the war, Ukraine has also attacked Russia’s hastily built Kerch Bridge, forcing Moscow to beef up security around the crossing and start using other military supply lines.
Ukrainians fear recognizing Russia’s control over Crimea would allow it to rebuild this bridgehead — and attack again.
All this is a far cry from the peninsula’s history as the home of the Crimean Tatars, a Turkic-speaking Islamic ethnic group whose roots in the region can be traced to the start of the 15th century.They were persecuted for centuries by the Russian Empire after it seized the peninsula in 1783. And following several rounds of mass deportations, they have since been replaced by Russian speakers, outnumbered 13% to 76% in a population of 2.2 million.
“It is not only land,” said one Crimean Tatar, 30, who works as a civic activist and asked to remain anonymous to protect their family on the peninsula. “If we refuse to fight politically for Crimea, it will be also a sign that it is fine to kill people, change geopolitical laws, steal land and start wars.”
Many Tatars would like to see Crimea return to Ukrainian control, with Joseph Stalin’s 1944 mass deportation of their people still in living memory.
In 1954, Nikita Khrushchev, then the leader of the Soviet Union, transferred Crimea to what was then the Soviet Republic of Ukraine. When the USSR broke apart in 1991, Crimea slipped out of Russia’s orbit, becoming part of the newly independent Ukraine.
For Putin, who believes the Soviet collapse was “the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” taking Crimea in 2014 was righting a historical wrong.
“As far as most Russians are concerned, whether they support or despise Putin, Crimea is Russian,” said Mark Galeotti, director of the consultancy Mayak Intelligence. “I was living in Moscow when Crimea was annexed, and the enthusiasm was astonishing, with people partying all night.”
For most of the rest of the world — including the U.S. — it was an illegal occupation, with only a handful of countries such as North Korea and Sudan disagreeing. In 2018, Trump’s then-secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said Washington rejected “Russia’s attempted annexation of Crimea.”
That’s what makes Trump’s reversal of that position so striking.“Crimea will stay with Russia,” he told Time magazine earlier this year.
That would be a dramatic reversal for the Ukrainian president, who has previously said there is “nothing to discuss” when it comes to allowing Russia to annex parts of his country. Even if he wanted to, Article 2 of Ukraine’s constitution says its “inviolable” borders can only be changed by a parliament-granted referendum, and not during its current state of martial law.
For many Ukrainians, Crimea holds a singular status.
“Crimea is a test for principles, resilience and dignity,” said the Crimean Tatar civic activist. “Not only for Ukraine, but also for the entire civilized world.”
