Annexation of Crimea by Russia (2014): Events and Aftermath

The annexation of Crimea was the takeover of the Crimean Peninsula, an internationally recognised part of Ukraine, by the Russian Federation in February and March 2014. In the days after the fall of Ukraine’s president during the Euromaidan protests, unmarked Russian troops seized key sites, a hastily organised referendum was held, and Russia incorporated the territory. Russia regards the events as a lawful reunification; Ukraine and most of the international community regard them as an illegal annexation.

Background

Crimea, a peninsula on the northern coast of the Black Sea, was home to the Crimean Khanate until the Russian annexation of 1783. Its port of Sevastopol became the base of the Black Sea Fleet and the scene of famous sieges in the Crimean War and the Second World War. In 1944 Stalin’s government deported the entire Crimean Tatar population to Central Asia; many Tatars returned only from the late 1980s.

In 1954 the Soviet leadership transferred Crimea from the Russian republic to Soviet Ukraine. When the USSR broke up in 1991, Crimea remained in independent Ukraine as an autonomous republic, while Russia kept its fleet in Sevastopol under a lease, extended in 2010 to 2042. In the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom committed to respect Ukraine’s existing borders in return for Ukraine giving up its Soviet-era nuclear weapons.

According to the 2001 census, about 58 per cent of Crimea’s population were ethnic Russians, about 24 per cent Ukrainians and about 12 per cent Crimean Tatars. Most residents spoke Russian, and support for closer ties with Russia was strong.

The takeover

The removal of President Viktor Yanukovych on 22 February 2014 triggered rival demonstrations in Crimea. On 23 February a large pro-Russian rally in Sevastopol installed a Russian citizen, Aleksei Chaly, as de facto mayor. On 26 February thousands of Crimean Tatars and pro-Ukrainian activists confronted pro-Russian demonstrators outside the regional parliament in Simferopol.

Before dawn on 27 February, armed men seized the Crimean parliament and government buildings and raised the Russian flag. Behind closed doors, deputies dismissed the regional government and appointed Sergey Aksyonov, leader of the small Russian Unity party, as prime minister. Over the next days, soldiers in unmarked uniforms, quickly nicknamed “little green men” or “polite people”, took over airports, communications and border points and surrounded Ukrainian military bases.

On 1 March the Russian Federation Council authorised the use of the armed forces in Ukraine. Russia at first described the gunmen as local self-defence units; on 17 April 2014 Putin acknowledged that Russian servicemen had been deployed in Crimea. Ukraine’s interim government, led by acting president Oleksandr Turchynov, chose not to order its outnumbered forces to fight.

The referendum

On 6 March the Crimean parliament voted to seek union with Russia and brought forward a referendum to 16 March. Voters could choose between joining Russia or restoring Crimea’s 1992 constitution with wide autonomy within Ukraine; there was no option to keep the status quo.

The authorities announced a turnout of about 83 per cent, with 96.77 per cent voting to join Russia; Sevastopol reported a similar result. The vote took place at two weeks’ notice, under the presence of armed troops, without an up-to-date voter register and without observers from the OSCE or the UN. The Mejlis, the representative body of the Crimean Tatars led by Refat Chubarov, called for a boycott. A report later posted on the website of a Russian presidential human rights council suggested a much lower turnout, though it was not an official count.

Incorporation into Russia

On 17 March Crimea declared itself an independent republic and asked to join Russia. On 18 March Putin addressed both houses of the Russian parliament in the Kremlin and signed a treaty of accession with Crimean and Sevastopol leaders. After approval by Russia’s Constitutional Court and parliament, the process was completed on 21 March. Crimea and Sevastopol became separate federal subjects of Russia.

On 18 March a Ukrainian serviceman was shot dead in Simferopol. Over the following days Russian forces took over the remaining Ukrainian bases and ships, and on 24 March Ukraine ordered its troops to withdraw. Several thousand servicemen left for mainland Ukraine, while many others stayed and joined the Russian forces.

Competing narratives

The Russian government presented the events as a response to an unconstitutional seizure of power in Kyiv and as protection of Crimea’s Russian-speaking majority from Ukrainian nationalists. In his speech of 18 March 2014, Putin stressed Crimea’s historical ties to Russia, described the 1954 transfer as a Soviet-era mistake made without consulting the population, and cited the precedent of Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008.

Ukraine and most Western governments rejected these arguments. They pointed out that the referendum was organised after foreign troops had taken control, that Ukraine’s constitution allows changes to the country’s territory only by a nationwide referendum, and that Russia had pledged to respect Ukraine’s borders in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum and in a 1997 friendship treaty. Many international lawyers concluded that the annexation breached the prohibition on the use of force in the UN Charter.

International reaction

On 27 March 2014 the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 68/262, affirming Ukraine’s territorial integrity and declaring the referendum invalid, by 100 votes to 11, with 58 abstentions. An earlier Security Council draft had been vetoed by Russia on 15 March, with China abstaining.

The United States, the European Union, Canada, Japan, Australia and others imposed sanctions from 17 March, starting with asset freezes and travel bans on officials, and later banning trade and investment in Crimea. The other members of the G8 suspended Russia, meeting as the G7. Sanctions were broadened in July 2014, after the conflict in eastern Ukraine intensified and Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down.

Aftermath

Russia integrated Crimea into its economy, introduced the rouble and Russian passports, and in 2018 opened a road bridge across the Kerch Strait, followed by a rail link in 2019. Ukraine declared the peninsula temporarily occupied territory and cut water supplies via the North Crimean Canal.

Human rights organisations, including UN monitoring missions, have reported pressure on Crimean Tatars and pro-Ukrainian activists. In 2016 the Russian-installed authorities banned the Mejlis as an “extremist” organisation. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Crimea has been a major military base and the target of Ukrainian strikes.

Timeline

• 2014, 22 February: Ukraine’s parliament removes President Viktor Yanukovych.
• 2014, 27 February: Armed men seize the Crimean parliament; Sergey Aksyonov is installed as prime minister.
• 2014, 28 February: Unmarked troops take control of airports in Simferopol and Sevastopol.
• 2014, 1 March: Russia’s Federation Council authorises military force in Ukraine.
• 2014, 16 March: A referendum, unrecognised internationally, reports about 97 per cent for joining Russia.
• 2014, 18 March: Putin signs the treaty of accession in the Kremlin.
• 2014, 21 March: Russian ratification of the annexation is completed.
• 2014, 27 March: The UN General Assembly adopts Resolution 68/262.

Why it matters

The annexation was widely described as the first forcible absorption of one European state’s territory by another since the Second World War. It broke the post-Cold War settlement on borders, led to years of sanctions and confrontation between Russia and the West, and opened a conflict between Russia and Ukraine that grew into full-scale war in 2022.