Republic of Crimea

The Republic of Crimea, translit. ''Respublika Krym'' ; uk, Республіка Крим, translit. ''Respublika Krym'' ; crh, , is an unrecognized federal subject (republic) of Russia, located in the Crimean Peninsula. Its territory corresponds to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, a ''de jure'' subdivision of Ukraine. Russia occupied and annexed the peninsula in 2014, though the annexation remains internationally unrecognized. Similarly to Ukraine, Russia administers the city of Sevastopol separately, claiming it as a federal city.

The capital and largest city located within its borders is Simferopol, which is the second-largest city in Crimea. As of the 2021 Russian census, the Republic of Crimea had a population of 1,934,630.

History

Background

The origins of the Russian historical claim to Crimea, which would culminate in the 2014 annexation of the territory, date to the 18th century, when the Russian Empire, under the Empress Catherine the Great, annexed the peninsula for the first time, in April 1783. While ostensibly recognised by the Ottoman Empire in December that year, the annexation sowed tensions which ultimately contributed to the outbreak of Russo-Turkish war of 1787–1792, in which the Ottoman Empire attempted to reverse it, but to no avail: the 1792 Treaty of Jassy, which formally ended the war, reaffirmed the 1783 annexation again. From 1802, Crimea constituted a southern part of the Taurida Governorate of the Russian Empire until the collapse thereof in 1917. During the Russian Civil War (1917–1921) Crimea changed hands multiple times, being ''inter alia'' the last territory held by the White Russian government in the European part of Russia in 1920, and finally became an autonomous republic within Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) in 1921.

During World War II, in 1944, the central Soviet authorities deported the Crimean Tatars for alleged collaboration with the Nazi occupation regime; in 1945, the region was stripped of its autonomy status.

In 1954, the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet transferred the region from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, another constituent republic of the USSR, then a highly centralised state, wherein borders between constituent republics was a technical issue of administration, despite the fact that Ukraine was a separate member of the UN. The Crimean Tatars were allowed to return to Crimea in the mid-1980s under perestroika.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Crimea became part of the newly independent Ukraine, which led to tensions between Russia and Ukraine. With the Black Sea Fleet based on the peninsula, worries of armed skirmishes were occasionally raised. Crimean Tatars began returning from exile and resettling in Crimea. Ukraine restored Crimea's autonomous status in 1991. Crimea's autonomous status was re-affirmed in 1996 with the ratification of Ukraine's current constitution, which designated Crimea as the "Autonomous Republic of Crimea", but also an "inseparable constituent part of Ukraine".

1990s Sovereignty Dispute

In January 1991 the Crimean sovereignty referendum re-established the Crimean ASSR. On 26 February 1992, the Crimean parliament renamed the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic ''the Republic of Crimea'' and subsequently declared conditional independence on 5 May 1992. That independence was never confirmed by referendum amid opposition from the government of Ukraine and on 21 September 1994 the Ukrainian Parliament renamed the Republic of Crimea as the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. On 17 March 1995, the Ukrainian parliament abolished the Crimean Constitution of 1992 and all the laws and decrees contradicting those enacted by Kyiv, ending Crimea's brief existence as a post-Soviet republic.

Autonomous Republic within Ukraine

Following the ratification of the May 1997 Russian–Ukrainian Friendship Treaty, the 1998 Constitution of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea designated the region as the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. In 2006, anti-NATO protests broke out on the peninsula. In September 2008, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ohryzko accused Russia of giving out Russian passports to the population in Crimea. On 24 August 2009, anti-Ukrainian demonstrations were held in Crimea by ethnic Russian residents. Sergei Tsekov (of the Russian Bloc and then deputy speaker of the Crimean parliament) said then that he hoped that Russia would treat Crimea the same way as it had treated South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The 2010 Ukrainian–Russian Naval Base for Natural Gas treaty extended Russia's lease on naval facilities in Crimea until 2042, with optional five-year renewals.

2014 annexation

In February 2014, following the 2014 Ukrainian revolution that ousted the Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych, the Russian leadership decided to "start working on returning Crimea to Russia" (i.e. envisaged the annexation of peninsula), and after a takeover of Crimea by Russian armed forces without insignias and pro-Russian separatists, the territory within weeks came under Russian effective control.

To facilitate the annexation politically, the Crimean parliament and the Sevastopol City Council announced on 6 March, in violation of the Ukrainian Constitution, a referendum on the issue of joining Russia, to be held on 16 March. The upcoming vote allowed citizens to vote on whether Crimea should apply to join Russia as a federal subject of the Russian Federation, or restore the 1992 Crimean constitution and Crimea's status as a part of Ukraine. The available choices did not include keeping the status quo of Crimea and Sevastopol as they were at the time the referendum was held.

On 11 March 2014, the Crimean parliament and the Sevastopol City Council jointly issued a letter of intent to unilaterally declare independence from Ukraine in the event of a 'Yes' vote in the upcoming referendum, citing the "Kosovo precedent" in the lead part. The envisaged process was so designed to allow Russia to claim that "it did not annex Crimea from Ukraine, rather the Republic of Crimea exercised its sovereign powers in seeking a merge with Russia".

On 16 March 2014, according to the organizers of Crimean status referendum, a large majority (reported as 96.77% of the 81.36% of the population of Crimea who voted) voted in favour of independence of Crimea from Ukraine and joining Russia as a federal subject. The referendum was not recognized by most of the international community and the reported results were disputed by numerous independent observers. The BBC reported that most of the Crimean Tatars that they interviewed were boycotting the vote. Reports from the UN criticised the circumstances surrounding the referendum, especially the presence of paramilitaries, self-defence groups and unidentifiable soldiers. The European Union, Canada, Japan and the United States condemned the vote as illegal. After the referendum, Crimean lawmakers formally voted both to secede from Ukraine and applied for their admission into Russia. The Sevastopol City Council, however, requested the port's separate admission as a federal city. On the same day Russia formally approved the draft treaty on absorption of the self-proclaimed Republic of Crimea, and on 18 March 2014 the political process of annexation was formally concluded, with the self-proclaimed independent Republic of Crimea signing a treaty of accession to the Russian Federation. The accession was granted but separately for each the former regions that composed it: one accession for the Autonomous Republic of Crimea as the ''Republic of Crimea''—the same name as the short-lived self-proclaimed independent republic—and another accession for Sevastopol as a federal city. A post-annexation transition period, during which Russian authorities were to resolve the issues of integration of the new subjects "in the economic, financial, credit and legal system of the Russian Federation", was set to last until 1 January 2015. (and
PDF copy
of signed document)

The change of status of Crimea was only recognised internationally by a few states with most regarding the action as illegal. Ukraine refused to accept the annexation, however the Ukrainian military began to withdraw from Crimea on 19 March, and by 26 March, Russia had acquired complete military control of Crimea, so the annexation was essentially complete.

Post-annexation integration

The post-annexation integration process started within days. On 24 March, the Russian ruble went into official circulation with parallel circulation of the Ukrainian hryvnia permitted until 1 January 2016, however, taxes and fees were to be paid in rubles only, and the wages of employees at budget-receiving organisations were to be paid out in rubles as well. On 29 March, the clocks in Crimea were moved forward to Moscow time.Also on 31 March, the Russian Foreign Ministry declared that foreign citizens visiting Crimea needed to apply for a visa to the Russian Federation at one of Russian diplomatic missions or its consulates.

On 3 April 2014, Moscow sent a diplomatic note to Ukraine on terminating the actions of agreements concerning the deployment of the Russian Federation's Black Sea Fleet on the territory of Ukraine. As part of the agreements, Russia used to pay the Ukrainian government $530 million annually for the base, and wrote off nearly $100 million of Kyiv's debt for the right to use Ukrainian waters. Ukraine also received a discount of $100 on each 1,000 cubic meters of natural gas imported from Russia, which was provided for by cutting export duties on the gas, money that would have gone into the Russian state budget. The Kremlin explained that because the base was no longer located in Ukraine, the discount was no longer legally justifiable. Crimea and the city of Sevastopol became part of Russia's Southern Military District.

On 11 April 2014, the parliament of Crimea approved a new constitution, with 88 out of 100 lawmakers voting in favor of its adoption. The new constitution confirms the Republic of Crimea as a democratic state within the Russian Federation and declares both territories united and inseparable. The Crimean parliament would become smaller and have 75 members instead of the current 100. According to the Kommersant newspaper, the authorities, including the State Council chair Vladimir Konstantinov, unofficially promised that certain quotas would be reserved for Crimean Tatars in various government bodies. On the same day, a new revision of the Russian Constitution was officially published, with the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol included in the list of federal subjects of the Russian Federation.

On 12 April 2014, the Constitution of the Republic of Crimea, adopted at the session of the State Council on 11 April, entered into legal force. The constitution was published by the Krymskiye Izvestiya newspaper, becoming law on the publication date, the State Council of Crimea said. The Constitution consists of 10 chapters and 95 articles; its main regulations are analogous to the articles of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. The text proclaims the Republic of Crimea is a democratic, legal state within the Russian Federation and an equal subject of the Russian Federation. The source of power in the Crimean Republic is its people, which constitutes to the multinational nation of the Russian Federation. It is noted that the supreme direct manifestation of the power of the people is referendum and free elections; seizure of power and appropriation of power authorization are unacceptable.

On 1 June 2014, Crimea officially switched over to the Russian ruble as its only form of legal tender.

On 7 May 2015, Crimea switched its phone codes ( Ukrainian number system) to the Russian number system.

In July 2015, Russian Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, declared that Crimea had been fully integrated into Russia, similar statements were also expressed at the Russian Security Council.

In July 2016, Crimea ceased to be a separate federal district of the Russian Federation and was included into the Southern federal district instead.

Russia has since the annexation supported large migration into Crimea, and the Office of the Federal State Statistics Service in Crimea and Sevastopol records as of 2021 since 2014 205,559 Russians have moved to Crimea. Ukrainian Ministry and Crimean Human Rights Group say the real number could unofficially be many times higher.

Infrastructure

On 31 March 2014, the Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev announced a series of programmes aimed at swiftly incorporating the territory into Russia's economy and infrastructure. The creation of a new Ministry of Crimean Affairs was announced too. After 2014 the Russian government invested heavily in the peninsula's infrastructure—repairing roads, modernizing hospitals and building the Crimean Bridge that links the peninsula to the Russian mainland.

In 2017 the Russian government also began modernising the Simferopol International Airport, which opened its new terminal in April 2018.

Russia provides electricity to Crimea via a cable beneath the Kerch Strait. In June 2018 there was a full electrical outage for all of Crimea, but the power grid company Rosseti reported to have fixed the outage in approximately one hour.

On 28 December 2018, Russia completed a high-tech security fence marking the de facto border between Crimea and Ukraine.

Ukrainian reaction

Once Ukraine lost control of the territory in 2014, it shut off the water supply of the North Crimean Canal which supplies 85% of the peninsula's freshwater needs from the Dnieper river, the nation's main waterway. Development of new sources of water was undertaken, with huge difficulties, to replace closed Ukrainian sources. In 2022, Russia conquered portions of Kherson Oblast, which allowed it to unblock the North Crimean canal by force, resuming water supply into Crimea.

On 15 April 2014, the Ukrainian Parliament declared Crimea and the city of Sevastopol "occupied territories".

In 2021, Ukraine launched the Crimea Platform a diplomatic initiative aimed at protecting the rights of Crimean inhabitants and ultimately reversing the illegal annexation of Crimea.

Government and politics

The State Council of Crimea is a legislative body with a 75-seat parliament. The polling held on 14 September 2014 resulted in United Russia securing 70 of the 75 members elected.

Justice is administered by courts, as part of the judiciary of Russia. Under Russian law, all decisions delivered by the Crimean branches of the judiciary of Ukraine

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