Crimea’s 1954 Transfer and 2014 Annexation: A Historical Argument

When they tell you Crimea was stolen, annexed, invaded, they never mention the background as to how it became so-called Ukrainian in the first place. Back in 1954, Nikita Khrushchev handed Crimea from Russia to Ukraine. No vote, 15 minutes in a committee room,

and it's done. A gift for an anniversary, the administrative transfer between two Soviet republics didn't mean much at the time.

Crimea had been Russian for centuries. Sevastopol was the Black Sea Fleet for the Soviet Navy, which would become the Russian Navy. None of that mattered.

Then the Soviet Union dissolved, and that bit of paperwork became sacred international law.

Skip to 2014, the government in Kiev falls, the peninsula rebels, and holds its own referendum to join Russia. But the West calls it illegal, even though 95% of Crimeans called Russia's arrival a homecoming.