In March, 2014, the so called “little green men”, Russian combatants without any identifying army insignia, occupied this Ukrainian peninsula. A referendum followed shortly on joining the Russian Federation, which the international community didn’t recognize. On March 21, 2014, president Vladimir Putin signed the law that officially declared Crimea part of the Russian Federation. The events of 7 years ago are today perceived differently in Ukraine and Russia.
Russia’s discourse: a historical reunification
The narratives of the Russian state-controlled press are based on the idea that there is an independent population in “the Republic of Crimea”, which called for the reunification with Russia. Moscow claims that the March 2014 referendum was an act of political will, in line with international legislation. 7 years after the annexation of Crimea, Russia’s official position is no different from the narratives promoted in the documentary “Crimea. The road home”, premiered on Russia-1 television station on March 15, 2015, in which Putin brags about successfully annexing Crimea to Russia, omitting the official clarifications of 2014 regarding the “little green men” as representatives of the free population of Crimea. Vladimir Putin insisted Russia wouldn’t have annexed Crimea if the people of this area hadn’t expressed their intention to be part of Russia. “I personally oversaw the whole thing. And not because I did everything by the book, but because whenever the order comes from the very top of the government, it is much easier to carry out”. Putin said Russia was forced to defend its Russian-speaking population in the area and that he was willing to resort to Russia’s nuclear arsenal in case the United States and its allies had provided any military support to Ukraine.
Ukraine’s discourse: a cynical and illegal occupation
In turn, Ukraine says it will never accept the illegal and cynical occupation of Crimea. “For the first time since the Second World War, the commonly-recognized frontiers of Europe have been cynically changed by one country, which recognized the territorial integrity of Ukraine in various multilateral and bilateral agreements”, a 2014 Resolution of the Ukrainian Supreme Rada reads. Kiev has been constantly pressing the matter in various international forums, backed by the UN through various resolutions. Seven years after the annexation of Crimea, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky continues to call on the international community to support Ukraine’s claim to retake the peninsula. “7 years ago they broke our hearts. We will never forget who did this, nor who allowed this to happen. Some people were trying to prove what happened was the legal and right thing to do, and right now they wonder why Ukraine is upset, why our hearts are heavy with grief”, Volodymyr Zelensky said on the sidelines of an event marking the Day of Resistance to the Russian Occupation of Crimea.
G7 will never recognize the Russian occupation of the Crimean peninsula
The Ukrainian media enthusiastically quoted the declaration of the Group of Seven (G7) that disregarded “Russia’s attempts to legitimize the occupation” of the Crimean peninsula. “We unequivocally denounce Russia's temporary occupation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol”, the group of the seven richest countries in the world said seven years after the annexation. Their declaration reflects both Kiev’s official position, as well as the statements of American president Joe Biden, who in late February said he would never recognize Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula.
G7 Foreign Ministers have condemned Russia’s human rights violations in the peninsula, the mass arrests, the oppression of Crimean Tatars, hailing, at the same time, the creation of the Crimea Platform, a framework for devising actions aimed at convincing Russia its occupation is costly and the annexation is not irreversible.
Also worth mentioning is the fact that the annexation of Crimea has been repeatedly condemned by the Romanian MFA as well, and Romania’s official position fell in line with the typical diplomatic response of NATO and EU member states.
Russian media lashes out at the West for using double standards
Some Russian media outlets have referred to the annexation of Crimea as a legal act of reunification, which the West doesn’t recognize because it works with double standards. Ukraina.ru, a news agency in Ukraine funded by Russia, writes that Western powers recognized other territorial changes in the world in the past, arguing that “some are allowed to do that, but not Russia”. Russian journalists recall the cases of Kosovo, Puerto Rico or New Caledonia, which resulted in territorial changes on the globe. The journalists also reference a 2017 statement made by president Vladimir Putin, according to whom the West is using double standards of geopolitical fairness when “some freedom fighters do what’s right and others don’t”. They also recall the “efforts” of Catalonian leaders to break away with Spain, which they see as “a process expressing the will of the free people of Catalonia”, blocked by the West. Their favorite point of comparison seems to be Kosovo, which they say set a unique precedent globally. “Not everyone is equal before international law, as some as forgiven, while sanctions are introduced in the case of others, fueling an enmity that has been raging for years”, the Russian media writes, tying some historical events on the globe to the process of “reunification of Crimea” and using arguments that aren’t fully sound.
Vladimir Putin, 7 years after the annexation of Crimea: “A historic event”
7 years after the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula, Vladimir Putin told Russia-1 and Sputnik that “the return of Crimea and Sevastopol to the mother-country was a truly historic event. […] It is the product of the consolidation of our state from within”. The Russian president also bragged about managing, over the course of 20 years, to bring together Russia’s historical provinces, consolidate the Russian state and society and build a better future.
At the same time, RIA Novosti published a series of editorials on Russia’s historical claim on Crimea. Titled “Russia’s sacred claim on Crimea”, the editorial includes a number of classic elements of Russia rhetoric and dismisses as ungrounded the accusations that Moscow breached the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, under which Ukraine received security assurances from Russia, the United Kingdom and the USA for joining the treaty of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. The author claims no official document ever called on Moscow to guarantee the territorial integrity of Ukraine. “The only request was to refrain from using an armed force against Ukraine and helping this country in the case of an attack from other states. […] If Ukraine destroys its frontiers on its own, then no one is forced to persuade the population of those cursed territories to live together”, the article also reads. Crimea was taken without bloodshed, and Russia didn’t open fire on Ukraine in the case of this peninsula, so there was no technical breach of the Memorandum, the author also writes, trying to induce on the readership an atypical interpretation of the international agreements Russia signed and breached (or rather it didn’t).
The “Crimea Platform” – ridiculed by Russian media
The Russian media has derided the “Crimea Platform”, launched by Ukrainian leadership, arguing it is a “fanciful” plan. Radio Sputnik analyzed the initiatives of the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, claiming they are utopic, referring in particular to the statements of certain Ukrainian officials regarding the need to introduce “a collective economic blockade” on Russia, which will determine a swifter recapturing of Crimea. Radio Sputnik created a 90-second audio clip shared by a number of press articles, which explains why Crimea will always be a part of Russia:
“After the Second World War, state borders didn’t undergo significant changes. Only certain colonies in Africa and Asia proclaimed their independence. Hong Kong became an administrative region of China, while enjoying some degree of autonomy. In each of these cases the changes occurred at the end of bloody conflicts. War, to put it bluntly. Crimea returned to Russia within a matter of weeks, swiftly and painlessly. Not only is this at odds with the global tendency, but no one will actually care to admit it. And the debates are ongoing: we won’t recognize it, and are calling for its return to Ukraine! How long will these debates keep going? Possibly forever. It’s possible a new generation of European politicians will one day understand the self-evident fact, that a letter to Yalta or a package to Simferopol will reach their destination only if Russia is marked under the recipient address”.
The symbol of glory vs. the symbol of the victim
While Ukraine is accusing Russia of breaching international law and is lobbying for retrieving Crimea on various platforms backed by major global players, Moscow considers the annexation of Crimea a momentous event, a long-awaited reunification. Whereas Kiev is promoting various ideas of introducing global or regional economic blockades of Russia in an attempt to weaken it and increase its chances of recapturing the occupied peninsula, Moscow laughs away all these projects, promoting press articles, TV and radio shows about the West’s double standards and the ever-lasting unity of “Crimea and Russia”. While Ukrainian experts spoke of a possible economic weakening of Russia following Western sanctions, tens of thousands of people were celebrating on Luzhniki stadium in Moscow seven years since the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula, praising Putin.
Russia has turned the illegal annexation of Crimea into a political symbol of glory and success of Putin’s rule, while for Ukraine, Crimea, alongside the Donbass region, has become a symbol of resistance and struggle for returning to the principles of international law. The occupation for Crimea was an opportunity for Moscow to display its strength and rehash older narratives about the glory and greatness of Russia, although this did attract sanctions for Russia, caused further strain on the country’s relations with developed states and resulted in economic losses and the impoverishment of the population. Losing Crimea turned Ukraine into a victim thirsting for justice and truth in international meetings and all its gets in return are resolutions, statements and political support. This helps very little to reinstate its sovereignty over Crimea, which continues to remain under Moscow’s firm grip seven years after its illegal annexation in 2014.
