Boris Johnson rages at Donald Trump's 'capitulation' to Russia - 'Putin will attack again'

Boris Johnson says it is time to take the boot off the neck of the Ukrainians and put the squeeze on Vladimir Putin.

Boris Johnson has described Donald Trump's Russia-Ukraine war "peace deal" as "an undisguised capitulation to aggression". The former prime minister warned there is nothing in the White House proposal to stop Russia from invading its neighbour a third time. Mr Johnson, writing in the Daily Mail, said: "All Putin needs to do is rebuild his armed forces, wait for another propitious moment and strike again." He added it is time "to take the boot off the Ukrainian neck" and "put the squeeze on Putin".

The peace proposal from the Trump administration includes recognising Russian authority over Crimea. That idea shocked Ukrainian officials, who have said they will not accept any formal surrender of the peninsula, even though they expect to concede the territory to the Kremlin at least temporarily. Giving up the land, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, is also politically and legally impossible, according to experts. It would require a change to the Ukrainian constitution and a nationwide vote. It could also be considered treason. Ukrainians are firmly opposed to the idea.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/2047105/boris-johnson-rages-at-donald-trump-peace-plan

 

SO, WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE LIVING IN CRIMEA?

2014 — ... In the end, 96.77% of the voters (1.233 million) in Crimea and 95.6% (262,000 in Sevastopol) backed reunification with Russia. In Crimea, the turnout reached 83.1% and in Sevastopol, 89.5%. The referendum was monitored by a group of 50 observers from 21 countries, including Israel, France and Italy. Most of the UN member-states refused to recognize the plebiscite.

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A HISTORY OF CRIMEA FROM VARIOUS SOURCES:

The recorded history of the Crimean Peninsula, historically known as Tauris, Taurica (Greek: Ταυρική or Ταυρικά), and the Tauric Chersonese (Greek: Χερσόνησος Ταυρική, "Tauric Peninsula"), begins around the 5th century BCE when several Greek colonies were established along its coast, the most important of which was Chersonesos near modern-day Sevastopol, with Scythians and Tauri in the hinterland to the north. The southern coast gradually consolidated into the Bosporan Kingdom which was annexed by Pontus and then became a client kingdom of Rome (63 BC – 341 AD). The south coast remained Greek in culture for almost two thousand years including under Roman successor states, the Byzantine Empire (341–1204), the Empire of Trebizond (1204–1461), and the independent Principality of Theodoro (ended 1475). In the 13th century, some Crimean port cities were controlled by the Venetians and by the Genovese, but the interior was much less stable, enduring a long series of conquests and invasions. In the medieval period, it was partially conquered by Kievan Rus' whose prince Vladimir the Great was baptised at Chersonesus Cathedral, which marked the beginning of the Christianization of Kievan Rus'. During the Mongol invasion of Europe, the north and centre of Crimea fell to the Mongol Golden Horde, and in the 1440s the Crimean Khanate formed out of the collapse of the horde but quite rapidly itself became subject to the Ottoman Empire, which also conquered the coastal areas which had kept independent of the Khanate. A major source of prosperity in these times was frequent raids into Russia for slaves for the Crimean slave trade.

In 1774, the Ottoman Empire was defeated by Catherine the Great.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Crimea

 

 

Following orders from Grigoriy Potemkin, Alexander Suvorov supervised the resettlement of a Christian part of the Crimean population to mainland Russia, in the northern Black Sea coastal area (since 1764, these lands were part of Novorossiya). In total, over 30,000 Armenians, Greeks, and Georgians were relocated from Crimea.

Suvorov prevented the Turkish army from further deploying in Crimea, and by 1779, most of the Russian army had gone, too – Alexander Suvorov was posted to Novorossiya. However, Turkish spies continued to provoke unrest in Crimea, with khan Şahin Giray suppressing any riots with remarkable cruelty. 

 

7. How did the process of annexation formally go?

By 1782, Grigoriy Potemkin addressed Catherine the Great with a memorandum that suggested joining Crimea to Russia, in order to “block the way for the Turks” and secure the Empire’s presence in the Black Sea. The empress agreed and issued a formal proclamation of annexation on 19 April 1783. On his way to Crimea with the document, Potemkin suddenly learned that Şahin Giray had stepped down from his throne – the Crimean Tatar nobility had openly opposed him and preferred Russian power to control them formally.

On July 9th, 1783, Potemkin solemnly declared Catherine’s proclamation at the flat top of the Aq Qaya mountain. After that, representatives of the Crimean nobility and common folk formally swore their allegiance to Catherine the Great as the Russian sovereign. Only at the beginning of 1784, the Ottoman Empire reluctantly accepted the new status of Crimea as a Russian province.

 

8. How did European monarchs react?

After the news of the annexation spread internationally, only France filed a note of protest, but the Russian diplomats responded, saying Russia didn’t object to the annexation of Corsica and was expecting the same from France concerning Crimea; also, Catherine reminded them that the annexation was performed only to calm the heated situation at the Russian-Ottoman border.

 

9. What was after the annexation?

In 1784, Sevastopol, the new Crimean capital, was founded by Potemkin, and the Crimean governorate was established. The population of Crimea had been significantly diminished – a great part of the Muslim population fled to Turkey. Potemkin insisted that the Russian garrison treat the local Tatar population with respect. Tatar noble families had been installed as Russian nobility, gaining access to many privileges, except the right to possess Christian serfs. 

Onward from 1780, and with considerable help from Prince Grigoriy Potemkin, who considered Crimea to be a kind of ‘his’ land, since he had conquered it, unprecedented agricultural and economic development began in Crimea, with its population slowly being restored and added to by settlers from mainland Russia.

 

The Crimean War[d] was fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the Second French Empire, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont from October 1853 to February 1856.[9] Geopolitical causes of the war included the "Eastern question" (the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the "sick man of Europe"), expansion of Imperial Russia in the preceding Russo-Turkish wars, and the British and French preference to preserve the Ottoman Empire to maintain the balance of power in the Concert of Europe.

The flashpoint was a dispute between France and Russia over the rights of Catholic and Orthodox minorities in Palestine.[10] After the Sublime Porte refused Tsar Nicholas I's demand that the Empire's Orthodox subjects were to be placed under his protection, Russian troops occupied the Danubian Principalities in July 1853. The Ottomans declared war on Russia in October[11] and halted the Russian advance at Silistria. Fearing the growth of Russian influence and compelled by public outrage over the annihilation of the Ottoman squadron at Sinop, Britain and France joined the war on the Ottoman side in March 1854.[9]

In September 1854, after extended preparations, allied forces landed in Crimea in an attempt to capture Russia's main naval base in the Black Sea, Sevastopol. They scored an early victory at the Battle of the Alma. The Russians counterattacked in late October in what became the Battle of Balaclava and were repulsed, and a second counterattack at Inkerman ended in a stalemate. The front settled into the eleven-month-long Siege of Sevastopol, involving brutal conditions for troops on both sides. Smaller military actions took place in the Caucasus (1853–1855), the White Sea (July–August 1854) and the North Pacific (1854–1855). The Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont entered on the allies' side in 1855.

Sevastopol ultimately fell following a renewed French assault on the Malakoff redoubt in September 1855. Isolated and facing a bleak prospect of invasion by the West if the war continued, Russia sued for peace in March 1856. Due to the conflict's domestic unpopularity, France and Britain welcomed the development. The Treaty of Paris, signed on 30 March 1856, ended the war. It forbade Russia to base warships in the Black Sea. The Ottoman vassal states of Wallachia and Moldavia became largely independent. Christians in the Ottoman Empire gained a degree of official equality, and the Orthodox Church regained control of the Christian churches in dispute.[12]

The Crimean War was one of the first conflicts in which military forces used modern technologies such as explosive naval shells, railways and telegraphs.[13] It was also one of the first to be documented extensively in written reports and in photographs. The war quickly symbolized logistical, medical and tactical failures and mismanagement. The reaction in Britain led to a demand for the professionalization of medicine, most famously achieved by Florence Nightingale, who gained worldwide attention for pioneering modern nursing while she treated the wounded.

The Crimean War also marked a turning point for the Russian Empire. It weakened the Imperial Russian Army, drained the treasury and undermined its influence in Europe. The humiliating defeat forced Russia's educated elites to identify the country's fundamental problems. It became a catalyst for reforms of Russia's social institutions, including the emancipation reform of 1861 which abolished serfdom in Russia, and overhauls in the justice system, local self-government, education and military service.

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France, which had sent far more soldiers to the war and suffered far more casualties than Britain had, wanted the war to end, as did Austria.[151]

Negotiations began in Paris in February 1856 and were surprisingly easy. France, under the leadership of Napoleon III, had no special interests in the Black Sea and so did not support the harsh British and Austrian proposals.[152]

Peace negotiations at the Congress of Paris resulted in the signing of the Treaty of Paris on 30 March 1856.[153] In compliance with Article III, Russia restored to the Ottoman Empire the city and the citadel of Kars and "all other parts of the Ottoman territory of which the Russian troop were in possession". Russia returned the Southern Bessarabia to Moldavia.[154][155] By Article IV, Britain, France, Sardinia and Ottoman Empire restored to Russia "the towns and ports of Sevastopol, Balaklava, Kamish, Eupatoria, Kerch, Jenikale, Kinburn as well as all other territories occupied by the allied troops". In conformity with Articles XI and XIII, the Tsar and the Sultan agreed not to establish any naval or military arsenal on the Black Sea coast. The Black Sea clauses weakened Russia, which no longer posed a naval threat to the Ottomans. The Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia were nominally returned to the Ottoman Empire, and the Austrian Empire was forced to abandon its annexation and to end its occupation of them,[156] but they in practice became independent. The Treaty of Paris admitted the Ottoman Empire to the Concert of Europe, and the great powers pledged to respect its independence and territorial integrity.[157]

 

Aftermath in Russia

Some members of the Russian intelligentsia saw defeat as a pressure to modernise their society. Grand Duke Constantine, a son of the Tsar, remarked:[158]

We cannot deceive ourselves any longer; we must say that we are both weaker and poorer than the first-class powers, and furthermore poorer not only in material terms but in mental resources, especially in matters of administration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_War

https://www.rbth.com/history/331286-how-did-crimea-become-part-of-russia-1783

 

 

From 1853 to 1856, the strategic position of the peninsula in controlling the Black Sea meant that it was the site of the principal engagements of the Crimean War, where Russia lost to a French-led alliance.

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The war devastated much of the economic and social infrastructure of Crimea. The Crimean Tatars had to flee from their homeland en masse, forced by the conditions created by the war, persecution, and land expropriations. Those who survived the trip, famine, and disease, resettled in Dobruja, Anatolia, and other parts of the Ottoman Empire. Finally, the Russian government decided to stop the process, as agriculture began to suffer due to the unattended fertile farmland. By the late 19th century, Crimean Tatars continued to form a slight plurality of Crimea's still largely rural population[36] and were the predominant portion of the population in the mountainous area and about half of the steppe population.[citation needed]

There were large numbers of Russians concentrated in the Feodosiya district and Ukrainians as well as smaller numbers of Jews (including Krymchaks and Crimean Karaites), Belarusians, Turks, Armenians, and Greeks and Roma. Germans and Bulgarians settled in the Crimea at the beginning of the 19th century, receiving a large allotment and fertile land and later wealthy colonists began to buy land, mainly in Perekopsky and Evpatoria uyezds.[citation needed]

 

Russian Civil War (1917–1922)

Main article: Crimea during the Russian Civil War

 

Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, the military and political situation in Crimea was chaotic, as in much of Russia. During the ensuing Russian Civil War, Crimea changed hands numerous times and was for a time a stronghold of the anti-Bolshevik White Army. It was in Crimea that the White Russians led by General Wrangel made their last stand against Nestor Makhno and the Red Army in 1920. When resistance was crushed, many of the anti-Bolshevik fighters and civilians escaped by ship to Istanbul. Approximately 50,000 White prisoners of war and civilians were summarily executed by shooting or hanging after Wrangel's defeat at the end of 1920,[37] in one of the largest massacres of the Civil War.[38] Between 56,000 and 150,000 of the civilian population were then murdered as part of the Red Terror, organized by Béla Kun.[39]

Crimea changed hands several times over the course of the conflict and several political entities were set up on the peninsula, including the following.

 

In 1921, the Crimean ASSR was created as an autonomous republic of the Russian SFSR. 

Crimea became part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic on 18 October 1921 as the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.[27] The Russian SFSR founded the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922, with the Crimean ASSR retaining a degree of nominal autonomy and run as a Crimean Tatar enclave.[40] However, this did not protect the Crimean Tatars, who constituted about 25% of the Crimean population,[41] from Joseph Stalin's repressions of the 1930s.[27] The Greeks were another cultural group that suffered. Their lands were lost during the process of collectivisation, in which farmers were not compensated with wages. Schools which taught Greek were closed and Greek literature was destroyed, because the Soviets considered the Greeks as "counter-revolutionary" with their links to capitalist state Greece, and their independent culture.[27]

From 1923 until 1944 there was an effort to create Jewish settlements in Crimea. There were two attempts to establish Jewish autonomy in Crimea, but both were ultimately unsuccessful.[42]

Crimea experienced two severe famines in the 20th century, the Famine of 1921–1922 and the Holodomor of 1932–1933.[43] A large Slavic population (mainly Russians and Ukrainians) influx occurred in the 1930s as a result of the Soviet policy of regional development. These demographic changes permanently altered the ethnic balance in the region.

 

World War II

Further information: Taurida Subdistrict, Crimean campaign, and Crimean offensive

During World War II, Crimea was a scene of some of the bloodiest battles. The leaders of the Third Reich were anxious to conquer and colonize the fertile and beautiful peninsula as part of their policy of resettling the Germans in Eastern Europe at the expense of the Slavs. In the Crimean campaign, German and Romanian troops suffered heavy casualties in the summer of 1941 as they tried to advance through the narrow Isthmus of Perekop linking Crimea to the Soviet mainland. Once the German army broke through (Operation Trappenjagd), they occupied most of Crimea, with the exception of the city of Sevastopol, which was besieged and later awarded the honorary title of Hero City after the war. The Red Army lost over 170,000 men killed or taken prisoner, and three armies (44th, 47th, and 51st) with twenty-one divisions.[44]

Sevastopol held out from October 1941 until 4 July 1942 when the Germans finally captured the city. From 1 September 1942, the peninsula was administered as the Generalbezirk Krim (general district of Crimea) und Teilbezirk (and sub-district) Taurien by the Nazi Generalkommissar Alfred Eduard Frauenfeld (1898–1977), under the authority of the three consecutive Reichskommissare for the entire Ukraine. In spite of heavy-handed tactics by the Nazis and the assistance of the Romanian and Italian troops, the Crimean mountains remained an unconquered stronghold of the native resistance (the partisans) until the day when the peninsula was freed from the occupying force.

The Crimean Jews were targeted for annihilation during the Nazi occupation. According to Yitzhak Arad, "In January 1942 a company of Tatar volunteers was established in Simferopol under the command of Einsatzgruppe 11. This company participated in anti-Jewish manhunts and murder actions in the rural regions."[45] Around 40,000 Crimean Jews were murdered.[45]

The successful Crimean offensive meant that in 1944 Sevastopol came under the control of troops from the Soviet Union. The so-called "City of Russian Glory" once known for its beautiful architecture was entirely destroyed and had to be rebuilt stone by stone. Due to its enormous historical and symbolic meaning for the Russians, it became a priority for Stalin and the Soviet government to have it restored to its former glory within the shortest time possible.[46][self-published source?]

The Crimean port of Yalta hosted the Yalta Conference of Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill which was later seen as dividing Europe between the Communist and democratic spheres.

 

Deportation of the Crimean Tatars

See also: Deportation of the Crimean Tatars and De-Tatarization of Crimea

On 18 May 1944, the entire population of the Crimean Tatars were forcibly deported in the "Sürgün" (Crimean Tatar for exile) to Central Asia by Joseph Stalin's Soviet government as a form of collective punishment on the grounds that they allegedly had collaborated with the Nazi occupation forces and formed pro-German Tatar Legions.[25]: 483  On 26 June of the same year Armenian, Bulgarian and Greek population was also deported to Central Asia, and partially to Ufa and its surroundings in the Ural mountains. A total of more than 230,000 people – about a fifth of the total population of the Crimean Peninsula at that time – were deported, mainly to Uzbekistan. 14,300 Greeks, 12,075 Bulgarians, and about 10,000 Armenians were also expelled. By the end of summer 1944, the ethnic cleansing of Crimea was complete. In 1967, the Crimean Tatars were rehabilitated, but they were banned from legally returning to their homeland until the last days of the Soviet Union. The deportation was formally recognized as a genocide by Ukraine and three other countries between 2015 and 2019.

The peninsula was resettled with other peoples, mainly Russians and Ukrainians. Modern experts say that the deportation was part of the Soviet plan to gain access to the Dardanelles and acquire territory in Turkey, where the Tatars had Turkic ethnic kin, or to remove minorities from the Soviet Union's border regions.[47]

Nearly 8,000 Crimean Tatars died during the deportation, and tens of thousands perished subsequently due to the harsh exile conditions.[48] The Crimean Tatar deportation resulted in the abandonment of 80,000 households and 360,000 acres of land.

 

Post-World War II

The autonomous republic without its titular nationality was downgraded to an oblast (province) within the Russian SFSR on 30 June 1945. A process of de-Tatarization of Crimea was started to remove the memory of the Tartars, including a massive name change of the vast majority of toponyms, which were given Slavic and communist names. Very few localities – Bakhchysarai, Dzhankoy, İşün, Alushta, Alupka, and Saky – were given their original names back after the fall of the Soviet Union.[49][50][51]

During World War II, Crimea was occupied by Germany until 1944. The ASSR was downgraded to an oblast within the Russian SFSR in 1945 following the ethnic cleansing of the Crimean Tatars by the Soviet regime, and in 1954, Crimea was transferred to the Ukrainian SSR as part of celebrations of the 300th anniversary of the Treaty of Pereyaslav, called the "reunification of Ukraine with Russia" in the USSR.

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Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Republic of Crimea was formed in 1992, although the republic was abolished in 1995, with the Autonomous Republic of Crimea established firmly under Ukrainian authority and Sevastopol being administered as a city with special status. A 1997 treaty partitioned the Soviet Black Sea Fleet, ending the protracted Black Sea Fleet dispute and allowing Russia to continue basing its Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol with the lease extended in 2010. Crimea's status is disputed. In 2014, Crimea saw intense demonstrations against the removal of the Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych culminating in pro-Russian forces occupying strategic points in Crimea and the Republic of Crimea declared independence from Ukraine following a disputed referendum supporting reunification. Russia then formally annexed Crimea, although most countries recognise Crimea as part of Ukraine.

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FACTBOX: History of Crimea’s reunification with Russia

In November 2013, a political crisis began in Ukraine, triggered by Kiev’s refusal to sign an association agreement with the European Union

 

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MOSCOW, March 15. /TASS/. March 16, 2023 marks nine years since the Crimean referendum, where the majority of citizens of Crimea and Sevastopol voted in favor of reunification with Russia.

Crisis of power in Ukraine

In November 2013, a political crisis began in Ukraine, triggered by Kiev’s refusal to sign an association agreement with the European Union. Supporters of the Euro-integration course demanded the resignation of the president and the government. The tide of unrest that kicked off in Kiev promptly spilled over to other Ukrainian cities and regions. However, authorities of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, where the Russian-speaking population constitutes the majority, refused to support the opposition. On February 4, 2014 the Presidium of the Supreme Council initiated holding a referendum on the peninsula’s status.

On February 22, 2014 a government coup [SPONSORED BY THE USA —OBAMA'S ADMINISTRATION] propelled to power the supporters of Euromaidan protests. President Viktor Yanukovich was forced to flee the country. The next day, the Ukrainian parliament voted for the cancellation of the law granting Russian the status of a regional language in some regions of the country. Although it did not take effect, the decision sparked mass protests by Russian speakers, first and foremost in the southeast of Ukraine, and also in Crimea.

 

Protests in Crimea

On February 23, 2014 pro-Russian residents in Crimea, reluctant to recognize the new Ukrainian authorities, started their own open-ended protest in front of the autonomy’s legislature to demand Crimea’s separation from Ukraine. On February 26, the supporters of new Ukrainian authorities and pro-Russian residents demanding secession from Ukraine gathered in the main square of the peninsula’s capital Simferopol. The ensuing unrest upset the operation of the Crimean parliament. Clashes left two dead and more than 30 others injured.

The next day, after the parliament building was retaken by the authorities the legislators sacked the old government and appointed Sergey Aksyonov, the leader of the local movement Russian Unity, as Crimea’s new prime minister.

 

Referendum

Amid continuing unrest in Crimea the local legislature set a date for holding a referendum on Crimea’s status — May 25 of the same year.

On March 1, Aksyonov asked Russian President Vladimir Putin for assistance in maintaining peace and calm in the peninsula. As tensions kept soaring, a decision was made to hold the referendum much earlier, on March 30. On the same day the upper house of Russia’s parliament — the Federation Council — empowered the Russian president to use troops in Ukrainian territory until the social and political situation in that country returned to normal. On March 1 the members of the city legislature in Sevastopol voted for refusal to obey the authorities in Kiev and for supporting Crimea’s referendum on expanding the autonomy’s status.

On March 6, 2014 the Crimean parliament asked the Russian president to admit the republic as a constituent territory of the Russian Federation and set March 16 as the referendum date. On the same day the city council of Sevastopol adopted a resolution in favor of participating in the Crimean referendum. The Crimean parliament formed the republic’s own government ministries, and also prosecutor’s office, security service, security department, customs and other agencies independent from the authorities in Kiev.

On March 11, the legislatures of Crimea and Sevastopol voted for a declaration on the independence of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and of the city of Sevastopol.

The two questions put to the electorate in the referendum were:

1. Are you for the reunification of Crimea with Russia as a constituent territory of the Russian Federation?

2. Are you for the restoration of Crimea’s Constitution of 1992 and for Crimea’s status as a region of Ukraine?

Support from more than 50% of those who cast their ballots was declared enough for the approval of either decision. The ballot papers were printed in three languages — Russian, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar.

In the end, 96.77% of the voters (1.233 million) in Crimea and 95.6% (262,000 in Sevastopol) backed reunification with Russia. In Crimea, the turnout reached 83.1% and in Sevastopol, 89.5%. The referendum was monitored by a group of 50 observers from 21 countries, including Israel, France and Italy. Most of the UN member-states refused to recognize the plebiscite.

 

Declaration of Crimea’s independence

The next day, March 17, 2014 the Crimean parliament adopted a resolution to declare Crimea a sovereign state. The same resolution contained a call addressed to Russia with a request for admitting Crimea to the Russian Federation as a new constituent territory enjoying the status of a republic. On March 17 the legislatures of Crimea and Sevastopol were given new names. Crimea’s State Council declared Ukrainian assets located in the peninsula as republican property and ruled that no Ukrainian laws adopted after February 21, 2014 were applicable in Crimea. The Sevastopol city council unanimously voted for the city’s accession to Russia as separate member of the federation — a federal city.

On March 17, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to recognize Crimea as a sovereign and independent state.

 

Reunification with Russia

On March 18, 2014 Russian President Vladimir Putin, Crimea’s Prime Minister Sergey Aksyonov, chairman of Crimea’s State Council Vladimir Konstantinov and Mayor of Sevastopol Aleksey Chaly, put their signatures to the treaty on the accession of the new territorial entities to the Russian Federation. Ukraine, the United States and the European Union refused to recognize Crimea’s independence and its reunification with Russia.

On March 21, Putin signed into law an act of ratification of the treaty and the constitutional law on the accession of Crimea and Sevastopol to Russia as members of the federation. On the same day Putin signed a decree to form the Crimean Federal District consisting of the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol (on 28 July, 2016 the Crimean district was abolished and the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol made part of Russia’s Southern Federal District).

On April 11, 2014 the Constitution of the Republic of Crimea was adopted. It established Crimea’s three official languages — Russian, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar.

On March 18, the peninsula marks the Day of Crimea’s reunification with Russia.

https://tass.com/politics/1589119

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On March 18, 2014, President Vladimir Putin signed an agreement with the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol on their entry into the Russian Federation. After more than 20 years of living under direct Ukrainian rule, the peninsula returned to Russia, which had first established its control over the region in the 1780s.  

This feature (first published in February, 2022) explains the history of the peninsula and what connects it with Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, and even the Jewish people.

 

What does Ukraine have to do with it? 

The Crimean Peninsula became part of the Russian Empire after a series of Russian-Turkish wars. In 1771, Crimean Khan Sahib II Giray gained independence from the Ottoman Empire thanks to Prince Vasily Dolgoruky, who had defeated the Turkish troops on the peninsula. The Khan signed an agreement on alliance and mutual assistance with St. Petersburg. And in 1774, the Ottomans completely abrogated their claims to Crimea, conceding them to Russia, by signing the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca. 

Nine years later, Giray’s reforms had angered the Crimean Tatars to the extent that he was forced to abdicate. In order to prevent a bloody power struggle, Russia was forced to send troops to the peninsula. The local nobility swore an oath to Empress Catherine II and received equal rights with the Russian nobility. They also took part in managing the newly created Taurida Region, which existed until the collapse of the Russian Empire. And in 1791, as the result of another defeat, the Ottoman Empire signed the Treaty of Jassy, according to which Crimea belonged solely to Russia. Both the Jassy and Küçük Kaynarca agreements are internationally recognized and considered valid. 

The revolutionary events of 1917 led to the collapse of the Russian Empire and the emergence of a number of pseudo-independent states on the territory of Ukraine: The Ukrainian People’s Republic centered in Kiev, the Ukrainian People’s Republic of Soviets centered in Kharkov, the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic centered first in Kharkov and then in Lugansk, the Odessa Soviet Republic, and the Taurida Soviet Socialist Republic in Crimea and the Northern Black Sea region. But after the Central Council of Ukraine signed a separate agreement with the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Kaiser of Germany, the entire territory of Ukraine and Crimea, which had never belonged to either Germanic country, was occupied by Austro-German troops. 

Ukrainian nationalists compiled a number of maps related to this period of occupation, in which they claim the Crimean Peninsula, inhabited at that time mainly by Crimean Tatars, in addition to Russian lands up to Voronezh and the Caspian Sea, not to mention a huge swathe of Poland and a significant part of Moldova. In some of these maps, only the northern part of Crimea is depicted as ‘Ukrainian’, and on others, the entire peninsula. 

After the Russian Civil War, the Crimean Peninsula became part of the RSFSR and was declared an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Crimean Tatars and Karaites were declared to be indigenous peoples of the region, and Crimean Tatar and Russian became its official languages. At the same time, the ethnic composition of the peninsula’s population (including Sevastopol) in 1897 and 1926 was as follows: Russians, respectively, 33.11% and 42.65%; Ukrainians, 11.84% and 10.95%; Crimean Tatars, 35.55% and 25.34%. 

 

A ‘New Israel’? 

The First World War brought tribulation to many peoples, but it also spawned organizations dedicated to helping people harmed by the hostilities. One of these organizations was the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), known in Russia as ‘Joint’. 

How does this organization relate to Crimea and the Crimean issue? Directly so. In 1923, the leadership of Joint, which had already provided assistance to famine victims in the Volga region, Belarus, and Ukraine, came to the authorities of the RSFSR with a plan to turn the hundreds of thousands of Jews living in the USSR, who had suffered in WWI and the Civil War, into farmers. The Soviet government, which included a significant number of Jews, supported the plan and created the Agro-Joint corporation (American Jewish Joint Agricultural Corporation). The authorities also set up a ‘Committee for the Settlement of Working Jews on the Land’ (Kozmet), which distributed land in Ukraine and Crimea to the new farmers for free. 

This project did not emerge out of thin air. Even before Agro-Joint’s activities in Crimea, four agricultural communes had appeared on the peninsula from 1922 to 1924. However, the bulk of the migrants (86%) supported by Agro-Joint went to Crimea in 1925-29, after the Jewish section of the CPSU (Yevsektsiya), the most influential contingent in the party, began to promote a plan to create a Jewish ethnic autonomous region, or even a republic, within the USSR’s Black Sea region, stretching from Odessa to Abkhazia, with its center in Crimea. According to some sources, a total of 500,000 to 700,000 Jewish peasants were to be relocated there. And, despite the fact that a Jewish Autonomous Region appeared in the Far East in 1934, the 14,000 Jewish peasant families living in Crimea continued to receive assistance until 1938, when the organization’s activities were banned. 

 

Collapse of the resettlement program 

There are many reasons for the failure of the program to create Jewish farms in Crimea and the ban on the activities of the American Jewish Joint Agricultural Corporation. Yes, it spent $16 million supplying Jewish agricultural enterprises in Crimea and southern Ukraine with agricultural machinery, livestock, and equipment for infrastructure, not counting credit and loan funds. But it should be noted that a significant share of this assistance was not free. Many farms struggled to pay loans and interest during the crop failure of 1932, which led to famine. 

In point of fact, the mass resettlement project had failed. Only 47,740 of the 500,000 Jewish migrants planned were resettled in Crimea before 1939. Of these, just 18,065 worked in the agricultural sector. The rest left for the large cities. In total, Crimea had 86 collective farms employing Jewish settlers, who cultivated only about 10% of the peninsula’s arable land. 

The Soviet leadership was highly critical of the fact that the assistance was only being provided to one ethnic group in such a multiethnic region and country. The Crimean Tatar population resented the allocation of funds to create exclusively Jewish regions (Freidorf and Larindorf) on lands that they had previously owned. Consequently, the disenfranchised Tatars prevented trains carrying Jewish settlers from entering the peninsula and did everything possible to harm already existing Jewish farms. 

Moreover, in addition to its legitimate activities, Agro-Joint was also engaged in one that directly violated Soviet laws. Namely, it supported underground organizations. On July 23, 1936, the director of Joint’s Russian branch, Joseph Rosen, reported from London to New York: “Our negotiations regarding emigration to the USSR are currently in limbo. The main reason is that a Jewish doctor from Germany whom we brought here has been accused of collaborating with the Gestapo.” This revelation became the reason for shutting down the corporation’s activities in the USSR. 

The forcible transfer of their lands to Jewish settlers incited the Crimean Tartars to actively cooperate with the Nazis and take an active part in the Holocaust. As early as April 26, 1942, the Nazis declared Crimea “cleansed of Jews.” Most of those who hadn’t managed to evacuate perished, around 65% of Crimea’s Jewish population. After the peninsula was liberated by the Red Army, the Crimean Tatars themselves were exiled to Central Asia.  

 

A royal gift 

Some sources claim that the Crimean Tatars’ eviction in 1944 came as a result of a promise Stalin had made to Franklin D. Roosevelt to clear Crimea for Jewish immigrants. According to the memoirs of Milovan Djilas, the future vice president of Yugoslavia, this pledge was exacted by the US president as a condition for continuing the Lend-Lease supply program, and in exchange for opening a Second Front. Though we will not pass judgement on how true this might be, it’s interesting to note that, even before the peninsula was liberated from the Nazis, the leadership of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee sent Vyacheslav Molotov, the deputy chairman of the USSR’s Council of People’s Commissars, a ‘Memorandum on Crimea’ which contained a proposal for a similar initiative. 

Participants in the 1945 Yalta Conference had the opportunity to personally see how Crimea had suffered in the war. The entire Soviet Union, including residents of the neighboring Ukrainian SSR, took part in its restoration. And it was then that Nikita Khrushchev, an ethnic Ukrainian and head of the Communist Party of Ukraine, came up with the idea to give the peninsula to Ukraine. According to the memoirs of one of Khrushchev’s staff members, in 1944, he noted: “I was in Moscow and said: ‘Ukraine is in ruin, and everyone is pulling out of it. But if you give it Crimea...’” Khrushchev’s proposal was not accepted at the time. He had to wait until he became the head of the Soviet Union before he could transfer Crimea to Ukraine, which was one of his first acts as premier. 

The “difficult economic situation” on the peninsula is often cited among the reasons for the transfer. But, less than 10 years after being liberated from the Nazis, the Crimean economy as a whole had reached pre-war levels, and its industrial development had even surpassed it. At a meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on February 19 , 1954, the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, Mikhail Tarasov, gave a justification for this step: “The transfer of the Crimean region to the Ukrainian Republic will strengthen the friendship of the peoples of the great Soviet Union, as well as the fraternal ties between the Ukrainian and Russian peoples, and also promote prosperity in Soviet Ukraine, whose development our party and government have always taken a great interest in.” The move was timed to coincide with the 300th anniversary of Ukraine’s voluntary accession to the Muscovite Kingdom. 

 

Legal nihilism in the USSR and its consequences 

The question of the legality of the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine was raised even before the collapse of the USSR. The fact is that, according to the Soviet Constitution of 1937, neither the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, nor even the Supreme Soviet had the right to alter the borders of a republic. This was only constitutionally possible after holding a referendum to determine the opinion of the population living in the territory to be transferred. Of course, no referendum was ever held on the peninsula. 

In November of 1990, the Crimean Regional Council of People’s Deputies decided to hold a referendum on whether to restore the peninsula’s status as an Autonomous Republic. Of those who took part, 93.26% voted in favor. Thus, Crimea became a participant in negotiating the terms of a new Union Treaty, which Mikhail Gorbachev was preparing at the time. Next, Crimean lawmakers planned to appeal to Gorbachev to cancel the illegal transfer of the peninsula to Ukraine, but the USSR collapsed before they had time to do so. Subsequently, the parliament of the Russian Federation voted on May 21, 1992, to confirm that the decision of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR of February 5, 1954, entitled ‘On the Transfer of the Crimean Region from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR’, had no legal force, since its adoption was “in violation of the Constitution (Basic Law) of the RSFSR and legislative procedure. 

Since the Constitution of the Soviet Union was still in force and there was still no Ukrainian Constitution including Crimean autonomy, the Supreme Council of Crimea adopted its own declaration of independence for a Republic of Crimea. A referendum to decide its fate was planned for August 2, 1992, but the Ukrainian central authorities would not allow the plebiscite to take place. 

In 1994, Crimea, which had status as an Autonomous Republic within Ukraine, elected a president who supported reunification with Russia, as did most of the members of the republic’s parliament. In response, Ukraine’s leadership unilaterally abolished the Crimean Constitution, the ‘Act on State Sovereignty of Crimea’, and the post of Crimean president, while banning all the parties that had made up the majority in the Crimean parliament. Against the will of the population, Crimea became Ukrainian. 

Odd concern for deportation victims 

Crimean Tatars had begun to return to their historical homeland back in Soviet days. The current head of the Mejlis (a body that purports to represent Crimean Tatars), Refat Chubarov, returned to the peninsula with his parents in 1968 and studied and worked in Crimea in the 1970s. It was the same with many other Crimean Tatars (members of this ethnic group who had fought in the Red Army and their families were spared from deportation). But the main surge of returnees arrived in the years after formal recognition (in the late 1980s) that their deportation had been illegal. 

After its creation, the Ukrainian state immediately declared itself the defender of the Crimean Tatars and allocated them land for housing construction. However, despite the fact that, according to the Republican Committee on Land Resources of Crimea, 147.7 plots of land were allocated to 100 Tatar families from 2001 to 2005 (as compared to 49.9 for the rest of the population), the majority of ordinary Crimean Tatars received none. Distribution of the land was handled by the Mejlis, which was unregistered in Ukraine and headed by ‘human rights activist’ Mustafa Dzhemilev. In 2013, Crimean Tatar entrepreneurs who run restaurants on the Ai-Petri plateau complained to the author that they had to transfer $12,000 to Dzhemilev’s entourage annually “to protect them from persecution by Ukrainian officials,” and then personally pay bribes to officials anyway. 

Ukraine’s support for Crimean Tatars appears odd. Ukraine still refuses to recognize any language other than Ukrainian as official. However, immediately after Crimea rejoined Russia, Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian became state languages in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, and Crimean Tatar also received official status throughout the Russian Federation (Ukrainian already had this status at that time). Similarly, after the peninsula’s reunification with Russia, Vladimir Putin personally proposed to the ‘Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People’ that it could continue its activities in Crimea by registering under Russian law, but its leadership refused.

The history of Crimean-Russian relations has seen many sharp turns, and it is impossible to analyze all of these complex circumstances in detail in this article. The last of these was the return of the peninsula to Russian jurisdiction in 2014. And although this homecoming rectified many of the past illegitimate decisions concerning the fate of the peninsula and its population, it also took place under very ambiguous circumstances. But this is a subject for a separate conversation. 

By Olga Sukharevskaya, Ukrainian-born ex-diplomat, legist and author based in Moscow

https://www.rt.com/russia/549962-peninsulas-complex-fate-how-crimea/

 

 

A SIDE ISSUE: GERMANS IN CRIMEA

The Government of Taurida (also spelled Tavrida and Taurien), was an administrative district in the Russian Empire. It included the mainland between the lower Dnieper River and the coasts of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov (63,538 km) and the Crimean peninsula (26,000 km). The center of the administrative district was the city of Simferopol.

 

Taurida was dissolved during the Russian Revolution in 1917-1918, when oblasts replaced the gubernias. Its territory was divided between Ukraine in the north, and Crimea in the south. In 1921, Crimea was formed into the Crimean Autonomous S.S.R. Crimea then passed to Soviet Russia (one republic within the Soviet Union) and in 1954 was tranferred to Ukraine. Formerly an oblast (province), it became a republic in the early 1990s.

 

Ethnic Germans began settling on the mainland of Taurida in spring 1789 when a group of Mennonites from West Prussia arrived and settled an area just south of Jekatarinoslaw on the banks of the Chortitza River. Within a few years, there were 18 villages in this enclave, which eventually increased to a total of 37 Mennonite villages. 

 

Another significant area of German-Russian settlement within Taurida was the Molotschna enclave of colonies, north of present-day Melitopol, Ukraine. Karl Stumpp lists 24 original colonies of the Molotschna or Prischib district, not including the numerous Mennonite settlements on the east side of the Molotschna River. Some historians refer to the Lutheran colonies on the west side of the Molotschna River, established as early as 1805, as the Prischib district. 

 

Scattered among the Lutheran colonies on the west side of the river were also several Catholic colonies, which were established after 1809. The exception is the Catholic colony of Blumental on the east side of the Molotschna River, which was established in 1822. But it was the Mennonites who dominated the Molotschna district, forming an enclave that would eventually include 55 villages. In later years, the landless sons of these and the Chortitza villages began buying land all over Taurida and formed another 30 villages for a total of 122 Mennonite villages in Taurida.

 

An enclave of Lutheran villages formed north of Mariupol and eventually included about 25 Lutheran villages, about 10 Catholic villages, and a scattering of Mennonite villages. The village of Grunau was the Lutheran parish head for this enclave. 

 

The Belowesch colonies new Cherigov, founded by 147 families from Hessen and Oldenwald in 1766, sent 36 families to form a daughter colony near the Grunau Lutheran villages in 1802. In 1831, the original Belowesch colonies accepted a government offer of land in the Mariupol region, which absorbed 122 families who founded five more colonies south of Grunau in 1832. 

 

In 1822, a group of Swabian Separatist colonists arrived in Taurida and formed three Separatist colonies - Neuhoffnung, Neuhoffnungstal, and Rosenfeld - near the Russian town of Berdjansk. Neu Stuttgart was formed in the same area in 1824. By 1914, all of the villages had become mostly Lutheran colonies with the exception of Neuhoffnung which remained Separatist until the end.

 

In 1835, a group of 69 Hutterite families formed the villages of Johannesruh and Huttertal near Melitopol in southern Taurida. Soon several other Lutheran villages sprang up around this same area. 

 

Although the predominant religions of the Taurida German-Russians were Mennonite and Lutheran, by 1941 there were also approximately 35 Catholic villages scattered throughout the mainland. Ethnic Germans began settling in Crimea in 1804, coming from Württemberg, Baden, and the Palatinate as well as Switzerland and Alsace. Starting in about 1860, many landless sons of colonists from all areas of the Black Sea region began migrating to the open land in Crimea. This migration reached its peak in the 1880s, but continued until about 1914. 

 

While colonists were streaming into Crimea from the north, many colonists had already begun to emigrate from Crimea to North America and Canada. In 1941, all ethnic Germans were forced to leave Crimea and were resettled in Siberia and central Asia.

 

In all, the mainland of Taurida contained over 325 German villages and chutors. The peninsula of Crimea contained over 540 villages and chutors.

Church Records Lutheran Parishes - The mainland had two known Lutheran parishes: Grunau and Prischib. There were originally only two parishes in Crimea - Neusatz and Zürichtal - which remained the only Lutheran parishes in Crimea until Hochheim became a parish in 1887, Djelal in 1893, and Byten in 1912.


Lutheran Church Records - Each Lutheran church was required to send one copy of their records to the Lutheran Consistory in St. Petersburg. These records  include births, marriages, and deaths. The earlier records were recorded in German and the later records in Russian. Translated records can be found here. 

Catholic Diocese - All of the Catholic villages of South Russia belonged to the Diocese of Tiraspol. Translated records can be found here. 

Catholic Church Records - Catholic priests kept one copy of the church records at the local church and sent one copy to the diocese headquarters. Read more...

Mennonite Congregations - There were two main Mennonite enclaves on the mainland: the Choritza enclave and the Molotschna enclave. Until 1884, the Karassan Mennonite Church was the only congregation in Crimea, but by 1921 the number had increased to more than 20 Mennonite congregations throughout Crimea.

Mennonite Church Records - Church records were kept at the local church. It is known that many of the mainland Mennonite Church records were held at the Odessa and Dnipropetrovsk Archives. Many of these records have been extracted from the original and extractions placed online here.  

It is also known that some of these records or copies of these records for Crimea were placed in the Simferopol Archives. The Busau (Ettingerbrun) church records were microfilmed by the Family History Library and extracted by Tim Janzen. They can be found online here. 

The Mennonites have done an excellent job of preserving their history, culture, and genealogy. This website makes no pretense at duplicating the exceptional work of theMennonite Historical Society of Canada. 

Separatist Parishes - There was one Separatist parish on the mainland with Neuhoffnung as the head of the parish. There was also one Separatist parish in Crimea with Schönbrunn as the head of the parish. 

Separatist Church Records - It is unknown how the Separatist parish records were kept nor is it known where any of these copies might be located. However, some villagers in the Separatist villages on the mainland were Lutheran and their information is recorded in the St. Petersburg records of the Grunau parish. Also, because the Separatist colonies on the mainland became Lutheran in the latter years, their records were included in the St. Petersburg church records for the years that they were Lutheran. 

Finding Church Records - The available original church records for Crimea from the St. Petersburg Consistory are on microfilm at the Family History Library and are also available online.  Many have been translated and can be found here. Also, check out the Black Sea German Database as some of the St. Petersburg records have been included in village family data files. 

Some of the early Lutheran and Catholic records are also available on microfilm from the FHL.
Census Records Census records (also known as revison lists) for the Mennonite enclaves for the years of 1797, 1801, 1802, 1806, 1835, and 1920 are available online here. 

Census records for the Hütterite colonies for the year of 1803 are also online here. 

Census records are available for 1816 for the villages of Friedental, Heilbrunn, Herzenberg, Kronental, Neusatz, Rosental, Simferopol, Sudak and Zürichtal in Karl Stumpp's book  The Emigration from Germany to Russia in the Years 1763-1862. The census records for 1850 for the villages of Heilbrunn and Sudak are available through the Germans from Russia Heritage Society. 

Resettlement Records
In October and November of 1943 the German settlers in Taurida fled from Russia and were resettled in Germany. Records of these families are contained in the EWZ(Einwanderungszentralstelle or Central Immigration Control Department)  records compiled by Nazi Germany. 

Although the majority of the Crimea Germans were forcibly resettled to areas in Siberia and central Asia in 1941, some information may be found in the EWZ records.  

Indexes of the EWZ records can be found in the Black Sea German Database. For more information on EWZ records check out our EWZ Q&A. https://blackseagr.org/learn_crimea.html  

MAKE A DEAL PRONTO BEFORE THE SHIT HITS THE FAN:

 

 

NO NATO IN "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)

THE DONBASS REPUBLICS ARE NOW BACK IN THE RUSSIAN FOLD — AS THEY USED TO BE PRIOR 1922. THE RUSSIANS WON'T ABANDON THESE AGAIN.

THESE WILL ALSO INCLUDE ODESSA, KHERSON AND KHARKIV.....

CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954

TRANSNISTRIA WILL BE PART OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION.

A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE USA.

 

EASY.

 

THE WEST KNOWS IT.

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.