Ukraine has no historical rights over Crimea and was willing to cede it to Moscow in 1991, according to pro-Kremlin propaganda, which cites a former Ukrainian prime minister who is a fugitive in Russia.
NEWS: Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov has stated that the country's first president, Leonid Kravchuk, was ready, in 1991, to cede Crimea to Russia, had the President of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin, asked him to do so. "Kravchuk, may he rest in peace, told me that if, in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha, Yeltsin had said to him: Leonid, give me Crimea, he would have given it to him." Such was the mood then, the Telegram post reads.
Earlier, Azarov had stated that Ukraine had no right to claim Crimea and the city of Sevastopol. According to him, until the events of 2014, there were no territorial disputes between Russia and Ukraine, and all such issues were regulated by the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership signed in 1997. Also, the speaker of the Crimean Parliament, Vladimir Konstantinov, has recently proposed the cancelation of the 1954 decision under which Crimea was transferred to Ukraine by Khrushchev's decree. He argued that the inclusion of the peninsula in the Ukrainian republic led to Crimea's break with Russia and "insistent attempts to Ukrainize the population."
NARRATIVES: 1. Ukraine was willing to cede Crimea to Russia in 1991. 2. Russia has the historical and political right to control the peninsula. 3. Ukraine attempted to forcibly Ukrainize the population of Crimea.
PURPOSE: To justify Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014; to create a false historical precedent for future Russian territorial claims; to legitimize Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: Nikolai Azarov's statements must be seen in the context of his pro-Kremlin affiliation and his presence on Russian territory for the past 11 years. The alleged conversation between Kravchuk and Yeltsin is not confirmed by any official source and, even if it had taken place, it has no legal value. The then presidents of Ukraine and Russia, Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kravchuk, are no longer alive to say what they discussed, but there is a 2016 interview given by Leonid Kravchuk in which he said that Yeltsin insisted on getting Crimea, while the Ukrainian side claimed, after the collapse of the USSR, that the peninsula had been financed by Kyiv for half a century, and most of the infrastructure projects were completed by the Ukrainian population. Leonid Kravchuk was therefore presenting himself as a defender of Ukraine's right to Crimea, not as someone who was willing to cede it to Russia.
Moreover, according to the Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine , of August 24, 1991, validated by the referendum of December 1, 1991 with 90.32% of the votes, Crimea became an integral part of the independent state of Ukraine. According to the result of the referendum, in Crimea 54.19% of the votes were in favor of the independence of Ukraine, which shows that the majority of the population considered even then that the peninsula was part of the Ukrainian state.
The transfer of Crimea from Soviet Russia to Soviet Ukraine in 1954 was carried out in accordance with the legislation in force at the time. The newly independent states inherited the administrative borders existing at the time of the dissolution of the USSR, and this principle was explicitly stated in the Alma-Ata Declaration of 21 December 1991, signed by all former Soviet republics, including Russia. Through this declaration, Russia officially recognized the borders of Ukraine, including Crimea.
Contrary to what the article claims, the 1997 Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation confirms the “respect for territorial integrity and inviolability of existing borders.” Russia then officially recognized Ukraine’s sovereignty over Crimea. Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014 is therefore a flagrant violation of international law.
Crimea was forcibly Russified, not Ukrainianized
Claims of “intense attempts to Ukrainize” Crimea are unfounded. According to the 2001 census, the population of the peninsula was 58,32% Russian , 24.32% Ukrainian, and 12.1% Crimean Tatar, and the Russian language enjoyed official status alongside Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar. Until 2014, the Ukrainian language was systematically marginalized in Crimea. Ukrainian students faced difficulties in accessing education in their mother tongue, and teaching materials were insufficient. In 2013, only one school in the entire peninsula offered full instruction in Ukrainian (for a quarter of the population), reflecting a policy of suppressing Ukrainian national identity, supported by authorities and politicians loyal to Moscow who enjoyed a broad autonomy guaranteed by the Constitution.
Pages of Ukrainian history ignored by the Russian press
Historically, Russia ruled southern Ukraine, including Crimea, for a relatively short period of time compared to other states. According to the logic of Russian propaganda, these territories should belong to the states that have been in the area much longer than Russia, such as Greece or Turkey. On the other hand, Russian historiography denies the Ukrainian presence in the area after the establishment of the Zaporizhian Scythia, composed of Cossacks speaking Old Ukrainian, who defended the southern borders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth for two centuries.
Cossack churches, houses, and cemeteries, with inscriptions in an old Ukrainian language, were flooded and destroyed as the Soviet Union built reservoirs and hydroelectric power stations. The USSR erased all traces of other cultures and nations from southern Ukraine, promoting the idea that there had never been any settlements in the area before the Russians.
CONTEXT: On March 16, 2014, the Russian occupation authorities organized an illegal referendum in Crimea, which was not recognized by the international community. Three days later, Vladimir Putin signed a treaty on “reunifying” Crimea with the Russian Federation. The annexation was condemned by the international community and led to the imposition of severe sanctions against Russia. The UN Security Council discussed a resolution declaring the referendum invalid, but this was blocked by a Russian veto. Subsequently, the UN General Assembly adopted the aforementioned resolution, reaffirming the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
The author of this narrative, Nikolai Azarov, was the Prime Minister of Ukraine in 2010-2014. He fled to Russia after Euromaidan. The politician is increasingly used by pro-Kremlin propaganda to illustrate disinformation messages. In March 2024, the Kyiv Prosecutor’s Office charged Azarov with high treason for carrying out anti-Ukrainian activities through collaboration with the propaganda and disinformation bodies of the Russian Federation.
