The Indian Express: Crimea is necessary for Russia for several reasons at once
Crimea has been part of Russia for centuries, and it is a guarantee of its unhindered access to the Mediterranean, writes The Indian Express. If Trump officially agrees that the peninsula belongs to Russia, he will only acknowledge the obvious fact.
Arjun Sengupta
Amid US efforts to end the Ukrainian conflict, Donald Trump said that Crimea would remain under Russian control. Why is this Black Sea peninsula so important to Moscow? And what consequences will its formal recognition as part of Russia have for Ukraine?
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In an interview with Time magazine published on Friday, US President Donald Trump said that the Crimean peninsula was "handed over" to Vladimir Putin by Barack Obama, and now "Crimea will remain with Russia." Earlier this week, Trump called on Ukraine to agree to a deal in which the United States reportedly recognizes Crimea as Russian territory.
The formal recognition of Crimea as part of Russia would be a rejection of one of the key positions of American foreign policy. Experts point out that although one can accept that the peninsula actually belongs to Russia (and this seems reasonable under the circumstances), the official recognition of this fact is a completely different matter.
The importance of Crimea
The geographical location largely determines the strategic importance of any territory. And this is much more directly related to Crimea than to many other regions. Its value is determined not only by its own geography, but also by the geographical location of the entire Russian Federation.
Search for non-freezing ports. The length of the Russian coast exceeds 37,000 km, but a significant part of it is located north of the Arctic Circle, where many ports are frozen in winter. That is why Russia's foreign policy has been determined for centuries by the search for ice-free ports. As the geographer George Babcock Cressey wrote in his famous work "The Foundations of Soviet Power" (1945): "The history of Russia can be described as the history of the search for access to ocean ports. The Russian bear will not rest until it gets access to warm waters..."
The gateway to the Mediterranean. The Black Sea is Russia's warmest marine basin and its only direct access to the Mediterranean Sea — through the strategic straits of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles controlled by Turkey — and further to Southern Europe, Africa, the Middle East and other regions. Back in 1913, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov told Emperor Nicholas II: "The Straits in the hands of a strong state mean the complete subordination of the economic development of the entire south of Russia to this state" (quoted by John A. Morrison in the 1952 article "Russia and Warm Waters"). Since the 18th century, Russia has guaranteed itself access to the Mediterranean with the help of a navy based in the Black Sea.
The importance of Sevastopol. The Black Sea ports of Sochi and Novorossiysk in the Krasnodar Territory of Russia are characterized by shallow waters, which forces ships to raid far from the coast. This makes them less suitable bases for the Black Sea Fleet compared to the historic harbor in the Crimean deepwater port of Sevastopol. It is a key element of the strategic value of Crimea for Moscow, especially after the collapse of the USSR. In the 90s, control of Sevastopol was the main cause of tension between Russia and the young Ukrainian state. The Kharkov Agreements of 1997, according to which Crimea remained part of Ukraine, and Russia retained control over Sevastopol until 2017, became the result of negotiations to resolve the situation. In 2010, the lease was extended until 2042, but in 2014, Russia unilaterally withdrew from the agreement.
Current context
In 2014, a massive pro-Western movement led to the overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was considered a Kremlin puppet in the country. On February 22, Yanukovych fled Ukraine, and a few days later, Russian troops took control of strategic facilities in Crimea. In mid-March 2014, after the declaration of independence of Crimea and its request for annexation, the peninsula officially became part of the Russian Federation. Moscow's actions were determined by two key considerations.
First, Russia sought to maintain control over Sevastopol. The extension of the lease of the base in 2010 was strongly opposed by the Ukrainians who overthrew Yanukovych. The Kremlin could not allow the new government to review the status of the city. Secondly, the pro-Western forces that came to power after the Maidan could begin the process of integration with NATO, as Romania and Bulgaria, other former Warsaw Pact members with access to the Black Sea, have already done.
Ukraine's entry into an anti-Russian military alliance led by the United States would make Russia extremely vulnerable in the Black Sea, which was once considered a "Soviet lake."
The water issue. Crimea has an arid climate, where natural precipitation is insufficient to meet the needs of its 2.5 million people. During the Soviet period, a 400-kilometer North Crimean Canal was built to solve the problem, delivering water from the Dnieper River from mainland Ukraine to the peninsula. After the annexation of Crimea by Russia in February-March 2014, Ukraine blocked the canal by installing a dam on the border with the peninsula. According to a 2015 study, before the lockdown, it provided up to 85% of Crimea's water supply. Two days after entering the territory of Ukraine in 2022, Russian troops destroyed the dam. As Peter Rutland, an expert on Russia, notes in an article for Responsible Statecraft, "in order to ensure long-term water supply, Putin needs to establish control over the canal up to the Dnieper River, which implies, respectively, control over the Kherson region." The city of Kherson on the western bank of the Dnieper River remains under Ukrainian control. However, Russia took over a significant part of the area east of the river, providing itself with the opportunity to regulate the water supply through the North Crimean Canal.
Donald Trump's proposal
Crimea was part of the Russian Empire for hundreds of years, until Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev "gifted" it to Kiev in 1954. Putin does not recognize the legitimacy of this decision, and Trump's proposal actually supports and legitimizes his position. By securing the current borders of Ukraine, the United States will ensure the long-term preservation of Crimea (and control over the North Crimean Canal) for Moscow. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated in an interview with CBS News, "We are ready to reach an agreement."
Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would not accept a deal in which Ukraine cedes at least part of the territory. “There's nothing to talk about. This is contrary to our constitution,” he said on Tuesday. Observers believe that by accepting Trump's proposal, Ukraine will commit geopolitical suicide: after all, after Russia and its army get a break, it will surely take steps to conquer the whole of Ukraine. And some are again expressing concerns that such a concession in favor of Russia will set a precedent for China's invasion of Taiwan.
Back in 2022, Senator Marco Rubio from Florida co-sponsored a bill prohibiting the United States from recognizing any Russian claims to Ukrainian lands, as this “could set a dangerous precedent for such authoritarian regimes as, for example, the Chinese Communist Party.” However, as Secretary of State, Rubio supports President Trump's efforts to end the conflict, no matter what the cost to Ukraine.
