“The return of Crimea to Ukraine, of which it is an integral part, is essentially a requirement of international law. Turkey does not recognize the annexation of Crimea and has declared from the first day that this step is illegitimate and illegal. This is a principled position that has not only legal, but also moral foundations.“[1] – Recep Tayyip Erdogan

THE LAW OF FORCE IN THE HISTORY AND FATE OF THE CRIMEA PENINSULA

The Crimean Peninsula is a territory with a rich and tumultuous history, which continues in the same tone to this day due to its unfortunate location on the periphery of the last great colonial empire that survived the Second World War.

Somewhere in the 5th century BC, the Greeks began colonizing the peninsula, establishing fortresses on the coast and in the mouths of the Dnieper. And they remained there even after the Roman conquest, in the middle of the 1st century BC, they survived the division of the Roman Empire, the conquest of the Kievan Rus kingdom, the rivalry between the two Mediterranean states – the Venetian and Genoese republics. – almost two thousand years, even after the Tatar conquests.

In the middle of the 15th century, the Crimean Tatar Khanate is formed, which will soon be included in the Ottoman Empire, until the end of the 18th century, when the Russian Empire, led by Catherine the Great, decides that it is time to spread its influence in the Caucasus, the Black Sea basin, the Balkans, the Mediterranean , aiming at Jerusalem. The formal motivation under which the Russian Empire began its expansion to the mouths of the Danube, the Black Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea was the protection of the Orthodox brethren.

The first clashes of the Russian-Turkish war of 1768-1774 took place on the territory of Bessarabia. In 1769-1771, Russian troops occupied all Ottoman territory north of the Danube, the Black Sea, and the Caucasus, and part of the Russian fleet from the Baltic Sea reached the Aegean Sea. Between May 1772 and March 1773 hostilities ceased, a truce was reached and a peace treaty was concluded in Focşani and Bucharest, but to no avail.

The negotiations were closely watched by Prussia and Austria, so Russia, which had several victories on the battlefield against the Ottomans, formulated a platform of moderate demands in the negotiation process: (i) the independence of the Crimean Khanate, (ii) ) the expansion of the autonomy of the Romanian principalities, (iii) limited territorial access to the Black Sea, free military navigation in that sea, free commercial navigation in the Black Sea, (iv) free navigation in the Straits and the Eastern Mediterranean, and (v) military reparations.

Although no peace treaty was concluded, in particular because the Russians believed that a quick military conquest of Istanbul was possible, the Ottomans took note of Moscow’s conditions and even accepted some of them, although not the most important ones. Hostilities resumed a little more than a year later, but with the death of Sultan Mustafa IV and the accession of Sultan Abdul Hamid II to the leadership of the empire, the Ottoman appetite for continuing the conflict with no prospect of victory faded.

The Ottomans accepted the treaty formula that the Russian Empire put on the negotiation table in Bucharest. According to Adrian Tertetzel[2]the peace treaty concluded in July 1774 in Kuchuk Kaynardja (Kuchuk Kaynargi) provided a solution to the (most public, but some remained secret) problems that led to the conflict between the two empires, namely[3]:

(i) recognition of the independence of the Crimean Khanate and its separation from the Ottoman Empire (Article 3);

(ii) territorial annexations carried out by Russia (Articles 4, 18, 19, 20, 21);

(iii) freedom of Russian and Ottoman trade and navigation in all seas of the Ottoman Empire (Articles 11, 12);

(iv) the protection and extension of the rights of Christian peoples, subject or vassals of the Porte (art. 7, 16, 17, 23, 25);

(v) Payment by the Porte of military reparations in favor of Russia (second secret article);

(vi) mutual extradition of criminals (Article 2) and release of prisoners of war and slaves captured by each belligerent (Article 25);

(vii) Rights of Russian pilgrims who will visit holy places in the Ottoman Empire (Article 8);

(viii) Cancellation of previous Russian-Ottoman treaties and conventions (Article 22);

(ix) The restoration of peace between Russia and the Porte, the withdrawal of Russian troops from the territory of the Ottoman Empire, the ratification of this peace treaty and the exchange of extraordinary embassies (Articles 1, 10, 15, 24, 26, 27, 28 and the first secret article).

The provisions of Article 3, which the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire undertook to observe in 1774, are reproduced in detail in the translation given by Adrian Tertezel in the cited work, in the appendix. For now, it is important to quote the following paragraph from this article:

“All without exception the Tatar peoples of the Crimea, Bugeak, Yedisan, Kanboyluk, and Yedikul will be recognized by both empires as governed by their own khan of the race of Genghis Khan, chosen and determined by the consent and unanimous consent of the Tatar peoples, whom he will rule according to their ancient laws and customs, not giving no account to any foreign authority.”

During the civil war between the White Russians and the Red Russians, between 1917 and 1921, the peninsula was for a while a fiefdom of the White Russian Army led by General Piotr Wrangler. The Wrangler eventually lost the battle to the Red Army led by Nestor Mango, and in the ensuing terror there were between 60,000 and 150,000 victims of the communist persecution in the Crimea (probably led by, among others, the Hungarian communist refugee Béla Kuhn).

In 1921, the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of Crimea was created as part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic; the return to independence of the territory, according to the agreement of Kuchuk Kaynargi, did not happen for a moment. Turkey, which at that time was fighting for its own independence under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk), did not make any claims to Crimea.

From July 1942 to May 1944, the Crimean peninsula was occupied by German-Romanian troops. Before the retreat, the Nazi troops under the pressure of the Red Army destroyed several tens of thousands of Crimean Jews. Subsequently, the Soviet authorities decided to carry out ethnic cleansing of the territory of the peninsula, accusing it of “collaboration with the Nazi occupiers.” More than 200,000 Tatars were deported, mostly to Uzbekistan, as well as 14,300 Greeks, 12,075 Bulgarians and about 10,000 Armenians.

Finally, on February 19, 1954, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree on the transfer of the Crimean region from the Russian Soviet Socialist Federal Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic with the following motivation: “similarity of economy, proximity and close economic and cultural ties between the Crimean region and Ukrainian SSR”. In the last years of the existence of the USSR, during the term of President Mikhail Gorbachev, part of the deported Tatars returned to Crimea.

In January 1991, a referendum was held in Crimea, at which voters approved the restoration of the Crimean ASSR. On May 15, 1992, the government of the Republic of Crimea was established and the constitution adopted. Four days later, Crimea agreed to become part of the new state of Ukraine and renounced its own government, but Crimeans demanded the status of extended autonomy. On October 14, 1992, the Verkhovna Rada of Crimea created the position of the President of Crimea, which was held by Yuri Meshkov from 1994 to 1995.

In March 1995, the Ukrainian authorities intervened and removed Yury Meshkov from the post of president of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, accusing him of secret negotiations with Moscow regarding the integration of the territory with Russia, and in 2011 he was deported from the territory of Ukraine.

In August 2009, large-scale protests against Kyiv began in Crimea, separatists demanded the intervention of the Russian Federation in order to impose on Crimea a status similar to that of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. When the Euromaidan protests began in Kyiv in November 2013, pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych called on the Kremlin to send troops to Crimea to protect Russian citizens on the peninsula. In February 2014, Moscow occupied the peninsula Read the entire article and comments on Contributors.ro