Basking in his wholly expected re-election victory, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed a large crowd in Moscow’s Red Square on March 18 to mark the 10th anniversary of his country’s annexation of Crimea.
The familiar themes of rectifying a historical injustice, the unbreakable unity of the Russian people and the importance of Crimea to Russian identity were trotted out once again. The crowd duly applauded.
Yet, compared with ten years ago when the whole country appeared to be in the grip of collective ecstasy, the celebrations seemed muted. Much has changed in the intervening ten years, not least that Putin’s miscalculations have put the status of Crimea in doubt again.
On the peninsula itself, life has changed profoundly. The “land of milk and honey” promised to the population of Crimea at the time of annexation has not materialized. International sanctions, high prices and increasing uncertainty have left the mainstay of the economy, tourism, in the doldrums. And the democratic freedoms that existed under Ukraine have disappeared, not only for the Ukrainian and Tatar populations but for the Russians, too.
The security of Crimea is also under threat as at no time since 2014. Ukrainian rockets and drones have destroyed about 20% of the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet, including the flagship Moskva. And the Kerch Bridge – the symbol of Putin’s triumph – has been subject to repeated attacks.
The Russian navy has been driven ignominiously from its bases in Crimea to the safer haven of Novorossisk in Russia itself. Ships carrying Ukrainian grain can now exit the Black Sea due to defeats inflicted on the Russian fleet.
In one area, however, the Russians have enjoyed success. The Russification of the peninsula is continuing apace.
‘Russian World’
Russification of Crimea is not an ad hoc policy imposed after the occupation. It is rooted in the ideology of Russkii Mir (“Russian World”). This concept, which is espoused by Putin, is itself part of a long historical tradition going back to the annexation of the Crimea by Catherine the Great in 1783.
The Russian World ideology insists that Russia is a supra-national civilization that extends far beyond the present borders of the Russian Federation to include Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and other parts of the former Soviet Union. At the same time, the ideology is intolerant of any other expression of identity within its sphere and justifies the elimination of that identity, as is taking place in Crimea.
The Imperial Russian State (1721–1917), the Soviet State (1917–1991) and now the Russian Federation under Putin have at different times all sought to Russify the population of the Crimean peninsula.
The Imperial government encouraged the migration of Tatars from the peninsula and Stalin completed the process in 1944 by deporting the entire Tatar population – some 200,000 people.
A partial return took place under Krushchev (premier of of the Soviet Union between 1958 and 1964), which greatly accelerated when the Crimea became part of a democratic Ukraine. Putin has now reversed that policy, seeking the destruction of both the Tatar and Ukrainian identities.
Eradicating non-Russian identity
Putin swore to safeguard the different national traditions that existed in Crimea when he launched the annexation. These promises were broken immediately and have continued to be broken ever since.
Ukrainian and Tatar languages have been suppressed, political activists arrested and any expression of cultural identity other than Russian is forbidden. The national body of the Crimean Tatars, the Mejlis, has been suppressed and all other representative institutions are a sham, like those in Russia itself.
Religious persecution against the Ukrainians and the Tatars, which is actively assisted by the Russian Orthodox Church, is also an essential part of the Russification policies.
What is striking about the Russification of Crimea is its comprehensive nature and the ruthlessness with which it is being carried out. A major instrument of Russification has been the imposition of Russian citizenship on the population of the peninsula. This has been achieved through a combination of incentives and crude threats.
Access to vital services such as health, education, banking, pensions and jobs is conditioned on acceptance of Russian citizenship. No passport means that these services are not available. The refusal of Russian citizenship has led to confiscations of property, expulsion from the peninsula and even threats to take away the children of those retaining Ukrainian citizenship.
Acceptance of citizenship makes men eligible for military service. And Putin’s government has ruthlessly mobilized men from the Crimea and the Donbas. A new citizenship law in April 2023 extended these practices to the territories occupied since 2022.
These changes have been accompanied by demographic changes that have taken place since the annexation. According to Russian figures, at least 200,000 Russians have migrated to Crimea since 2014. Ukrainian figures suggest that 50,000 Ukrainians and Tatars have left over the same period.
This is a form of ethnic cleansing designed to make Crimea irrevocably Russian and protect it against any fair referendum that might return the peninsula to Ukraine.
The ten years since the annexation of Crimea have seen a dismal exercise in the suppression of a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society by a ruthless regime that tolerates no identities apart from the one that it prescribes.
Russification in Crimea has also provided a model that has been imposed on Ukrainian territory taken since 2022 and is a grim warning to any future lands that fall under Russian occupation.
Shane O’Rourke is a senior lecturer in modern history at the University of York.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
What an idiot
why does Asia Times hired this type of cabbage news writer?
yeah, meanwhile what is happening in Gaza is called complicated, right? Whenever westerners talk about genocide, the whole world can smell what they are cooking, the dish is called hypocrisy
Can we just mention the truth here?
Crimea was part of Russia and was transferred to Ukraine (who wasn’t a country back then) for administrative reasons. They already had Russian nationality.
As for the Tatars, in the 1930’s they were angered by Jewish settlers who were getting money for farming and not them, when the Nazis came in the helped them deport the Jews and sided with them. The soviets punished for that after the war ended by sending them to central Asia.
This is the context that is missing here. The author is misleading by omission.
Con la consegna alla Russia delle migliaia di bombe atomiche detenute dall’Ucraina dai tempi dell’Unione Sovietica, Kiev ottenne l’impegno di Mosca a rispettare la sua integrità territoriale (accordo del 1994). Kiev si è fidata e fece male. Invece di consegnare tutte le atomiche, l’Ucraina doveva tenersene qualche decina: in questo modo non sarebbe stata invasa dai russi.
its a reward for being a fence against Russia, but hey ukraine are enjoying NATO security now
enjoying….L.O.L.