At a time when Ukrainian strikes deep into enemy territory are altering the strategic situation, the author revisits the history of Crimea. Unless Vladimir Putin is overthrown by a palace coup—preceded or accompanied by the collapse of the Russian state—these strikes will likely not be enough to change the course of events. Without restoring maneuverability on the battlefield, the return to Ukraine of the territories that have been taken from it is uncertain. The fact remains that the myth of territories that have ‘always been Russian’ does not stand up to scrutiny.
Over the millennia, the Crimean Peninsula (approximately 30,000 sq km) has come under successive dominations, with Russian rule being a relatively late development in the grand scheme of things. The northern part of Crimea belongs to the steppe world, and the peninsula has been inhabited by nomadic peoples originating from the depths of Eurasia. Sheltered from the harsh northern climate by mountains, the southern part is fully exposed to the Black Sea and enjoys a Mediterranean-type climate. In ancient times, Indo-European-speaking peoples occupied what Herodotus called Taurida: the Cimmerians, Scythians, and Sarmatians. Taurida subsequently came under Hellenic and then Roman influence. Thus, the Romans recruited Sarmatian contingents to protect part of the limes and the Empire’s major trade routes.
Crimea and the Great Eurasian Steppe
In Late Antiquity (the Late Empire in classical historiography), the Sarmatians of the Black Sea region came under Gothic rule. However, the Eastern Roman Empire retained a foothold in the southern part of the peninsula. Over time, the Goths became Hellenized and Christianized, while maintaining their own distinct identity, which endured into the Early Middle Ages. In the 4th Century, the Gothic kingdom—which then stretched across the territory of present-day Ukraine, both on the mainland and the peninsula—was defeated by the Huns, who were sweeping westward. From that point on, the northern part of Crimea came under the rule of Altaic peoples from Central Asia (they spoke Turkic-Mongolian languages). The Huns were succeeded by the Bulgars, the Khazars, the Cumans (or Kipchaks), and the Pechenegs, whose movements spanned a vast area stretching from the Caspian Sea to the Danube. To counter this, Constantinople formed alliances with one group against another and turned southern Crimea into a military province (the ‘theme’ of Kherson).
With the Crusades and the Latin capture of Constantinople in 1204, the city-states of Genoa and Venice were able to establish fortified trading posts in Crimea. Italian merchants thus captured a share of the wealth circulating along the ‘Silk Roads,’ as Crimea served as a hub for trade with both the Byzantine and Egyptian East and the continental West. It was in the 13th Century that the Mongols, also known as ‘Tatars,’ invaded. Under the command of Batu, grandson of Genghis Khan, Kyiv was destroyed (1240), medieval Rus’ was conquered, and Crimea came under the control of the Khanate of the Golden Horde, also known as the ‘Kipchak Khanate.’ From that point on, the ‘Tatar’ presence would dominate Crimea’s history for several centuries. Mongol rule was challenged in 1480, during the reign of Ivan III, known as Ivan the Great. Soon after, Ivan IV the Terrible launched a counteroffensive, capturing Kazan and Astrakhan (1552–1554). He was the first to assume the title of tsar, and the Principality of Moscow became Russia. This new name was intended to draw on the prestigious cultural heritage of Kievan Rus’ and to legitimize its claims to the southern steppes. These territories were then contested between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, along the Baltic-Black Sea axis, and the Crimean Tatars, ruled by the Giray dynasty.
Transformed into a regional khanate following the breakup of the Mongol Empire, Crimean Tatar territory was a major commercial and cosmopolitan center that played an active role in trade between the East and the West. In addition to the Italian trading posts mentioned above, it was also home to Greek, Armenian, Arab, and Jewish (Karaite) merchant colonies. At the end of the 15th Century, the Crimean Khanate came under the influence of the Ottoman Empire, while retaining a degree of autonomy. Even in the 16th Century, Tatar armies marched up the Dnieper and Don rivers to invade Muscovy (in 1571 and 1577, the Tatars burned Moscow). In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Russian Empire expanded southward, with part of the southern steppes—in the region of present-day Kharkiv—becoming a border province (‘Ukraïna’). Under Catherine II, the lands north of the Black Sea were the subject of geopolitical rivalries between the Russians and the Ottomans. Between 1768 and 1774, a Russo-Ottoman War resulted in the victory of Catherine II’s armies and the establishment of ‘New Russia.’ The northern shores of the Black Sea and the Crimean Peninsula were annexed and incorporated into the Governorate of Taurida. The annexation was ratified by the Treaty of Jassy, which ended another Russo-Ottoman War (1787–1792).
Russian-Soviet Rule
Crimea then took on a major role in Russia’s naval strategy and its ‘warm seas’ policy (the port of Sevastopol was built in 1783). Locally, the Tatars were subjected to persecution, and 300,000 of them fled Crimea for the Ottoman Empire. The tsar’s government pursued a policy of repopulation by bringing in Slavic, German, Armenian, and Greek settlers. During the Crimean War (1853–1856), the Tatars were displaced inland, and 200,000 of them went into exile. The Tatars thus became a minority in Crimea; colonization and population transfers were accompanied by the Russification of the peninsula. World War I called into question the future prospects of the Tsarist Empire. It had been undergoing a comprehensive transformation since the 1880s and 1890s (a possible shift toward liberalism?), which was brought to an abrupt halt by defeat and the revolution in 1917. After the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 3, 1918), Crimea was among the territories to which the Bolsheviks had temporarily renounced their claims. Very quickly, it became one of the bases for the White armies, which the Allies supported—with varying degrees of vigor—following the defeat of the Central Powers. In 1920, General Wrangel’s army evacuated the Crimea in the face of the Bolsheviks. Initially, the national rights of the Tatars were emphasized within the framework of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1921). From 1927 to 1930, Stalin’s purges, ‘dekulakization,’ and famines devastated the population. With the Hitler-Stalin alliance broken and Operation Barbarossa launched on June 22, 1941, the war and the rise of Great Russian Bolshevism intensified the repression of non-Russian groups.
These persecutions explain why some Tatars welcomed German troops in the summer of 1942. Berlin authorized the formation of a Central Muslim Committee, and six Tatar battalions were recruited. After the German army was driven out of Crimea, the Tatars were denounced as a “collaborating people,” and Stalin ordered their deportation (decree of May 11, 1944). From May 18 to 20, 1944, nearly 200,000 Tatars—40 to 50% of whom were children under the age of sixteen—were crammed into cattle cars bound for Central Asia. Shortly thereafter, Bulgarians, Greeks, and Armenians from Crimea were also deported. Demobilized Tatar soldiers from the Soviet Army would soon follow. Thousands of deportees perished during the journey, and a quarter of the Tatar population disappeared within the next four years. In Crimea, Tatar lands were allocated to Russian settlers, place names were systematically changed, and the autonomous republic ceased to exist, absorbed by Russia.
When Khrushchev transferred Crimea to Ukraine in 1954, the Tatar presence was nothing more than an obliterated memory (a few Tatar war widows still remained). Reduced to the status of ‘special settlers’ in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the Tatars saw their living conditions ease in 1956. Although they were rehabilitated in 1967, they were barred from returning to Crimea and did not regain their national rights. It was not until 1989 that the Tatars were allowed to return to their homeland. Just over half of them (out of a total of 400,000) made the return journey, though they were unable to reclaim the homes and land that Stalin had seized from them. The land issue is a key factor in the strained relations between the Tatars (15% of the population) and the Russians of Crimea (60%).
Russian Pressure on Ukrainian Crimea
When the USSR collapsed, the fate of Crimea and the Sevastopol naval base became the focus of a geopolitical conflict between Russia and Ukraine (Crimean residents voted in favor of independence from Ukraine). However, Russia’s signing of the Budapest Memorandum on the denuclearization of Ukraine implied recognition of Ukraine’s borders, including Crimea. The same applies to the Russian-Ukrainian Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation signed in 1997. In exchange, Moscow may continue to use the naval base in Sevastopol in return for payment of rent and a reduction in gas prices. The ‘Orange Revolution’ (2004) and the rise to power of a pro-Western administration, determined to bring Ukraine into NATO and the European Union, had consequences in Ukraine, as Moscow feared losing access to the Sevastopol base.
Tensions were particularly high when Russian naval units departed from the base to participate in the war against Georgia (August 2008). A few months earlier, France and Germany had rejected NATO’s expansion to include both Ukraine and Georgia (Bucharest Summit, April 2–4, 2008). However, the return to power of the pro-Russian Party of Regions in 2009 eased this geopolitical conflict. Kyiv withdrew its NATO candidacy, adopted a neutral status, and extended the lease on the Sevastopol base until 2042. Broadly speaking, the possibility of forging closer ties with Brussels was the compensation for renouncing NATO membership. In 2013, Russian pressure on Kyiv—which was about to sign an association and free trade agreement with the European Union—spilled over into Crimea: Vladimir Putin seized the peninsula, which was illegally annexed on March 18, 2014. Since then, Russia has turned Crimea into a supposedly autonomous republic, with Sevastopol holding the status of a federal city. A few years later, the construction of the ‘Putin Bridge’ was intended to symbolize Crimea’s incorporation into Russia.
As the war in Ukraine takes a new turn, beginning with the ‘special military operation’ launched on February 24, 2022, Crimea served as a rear base for the Russian military operating on the mainland and as an ‘aircraft carrier’ for the Black Sea basin (Russian military literature refers to it as a ‘southern strategic bastion’). It is known that the Russian navy quickly lost control of the western part of the Black Sea, with Ukrainian strikes forcing it to retreat to ports on the Sea of Azov and along the Caucasus coast (Novorossiysk), all the way to Abkhazia—which was seized from Georgia in 2008 and is now supposedly independent. After nearly 1,600 days of war, Crimea is virtually under siege, supply lines have been severed, and the ‘Putin bridge’ is exposed to Ukrainian strikes (the S-400s intended to protect it have been neutralized). The overall situation opens up a range of possibilities for the peninsula.
Opening up new possibilities
For a long time, ‘realists’ wanted Ukraine to be inevitably defeated and, in the hope of preserving a rump state, to recognize Russian sovereignty over Crimea. Along with the Donbas and a few other ‘trifles’ (in their eyes), namely the granting of a ‘right to interfere’ (an oxymoron) in Ukrainian politics, via the Moscow Patriarchate and a few other institutional means, under the pretext of ‘denazifying’ the country. In short, Ukraine was destined to be carved up, with the part west of the Dnieper to become a satellite state of Moscow. As for the Ukrainians, given their history (the Holodomor) and the current plight of the occupied people, they had every reason to fear the worst.
Ukraine remains undefeated and is regaining the initiative, as a realistic assessment of the military situation has invalidated the predictions of the so-called realists. In the United States, the Trump administration finally seems to understand the futility of the “Nixon in reverse” strategy it had been pursuing (though we must remain wary of the U.S. president’s missteps). Finally, from a geo-historical perspective, knowledge of past events—examined across different time scales—in no way legitimizes Russia’s narrative regarding Crimea, nor regarding Ukraine as a whole. We must therefore plan for and prepare the return of the peninsula and other temporarily lost territories to the motherland.
Associate professor of history and geography and researcher at the French Institute of Geopolitics (University of Paris VIII). Author of several books, he works within the Thomas More Institute on geopolitical and defense issues in Europe. His research areas cover the Baltic-Black Sea region, post-Soviet Eurasia, and the Mediterranean.