Crimea is at the crux of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. Here's why it's important.
All this is a far cry from the peninsula's history as the home of the Crimean Tatars, a Turkic-speaking Islamic ethnic group whose roots in the region can be traced to the start of the 15th century.
They were persecuted for centuries by the Russian Empire after it seized the peninsula in 1783. And following several rounds of mass deportations, they have since been replaced by Russian speakers, outnumbered 13% to 76% in a population of 2.2 million.
'It is not only land,' said one Crimean Tatar, 30, who works as a civic activist and asked to remain anonymous to protect their family on the peninsula. 'If we refuse to fight politically for Crimea, it will be also a sign that it is fine to kill people, change geopolitical laws, steal land and start wars.'
Many Tatars would like to see Crimea return to Ukrainian control, with Joseph Stalin's 1944 mass deportation of their people still in living memory.
In 1954, Nikita Khrushchev, then the leader of the Soviet Union, transferred Crimea to what was then the Soviet Republic of Ukraine. When the USSR broke apart in 1991, Crimea slipped out of Russia's orbit, becoming part of the newly independent Ukraine.
For Putin, who believes the Soviet collapse was 'the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,' taking Crimea in 2014 was righting a historical wrong.
'As far as most Russians are concerned, whether they support or despise Putin, Crimea is Russian,' said Mark Galeotti, director of the consultancy Mayak Intelligence. 'I was living in Moscow when Crimea was annexed, and the enthusiasm was astonishing, with people partying all night.'
For most of the rest of the world — including the U.S. — it was an illegal occupation, with only a handful of countries such as North Korea and Sudan disagreeing. In 2018, Trump's then-secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said Washington rejected 'Russia's attempted annexation of Crimea.'
That's what makes Trump's reversal of that position so striking.
'Crimea will stay with Russia,' he told Time magazine on Friday.
When asked Sunday whether Zelenskyy was ready to give up Crimea, Trump told reporters, 'Oh, I think so, yeah.'
That would be a dramatic reversal for the Ukrainian president, who has previously said there is 'nothing to discuss' when it comes to allowing Russia to annex parts of his country. Even if he wanted to, Article 2 of Ukraine's constitution says its 'inviolable' borders can only be changed by a parliament-granted referendum, and not during its current state of martial law.
Some within the Trump administration don't appear optimistic that success is imminent. Vice President JD Vance told Fox News on Thursday that the war is "not going to end any time soon."
Russia currently controls around 20% of Ukraine following its full-scale invasion in 2022. But for many Ukrainians, Crimea holds a singular status.
'Crimea is a test for principles, resilience and dignity,' said the Crimean Tatar civic activist. 'Not only for Ukraine, but also for the entire civilized world.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BreakingNews.ie
14 minutes ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Oleksandr Usyk sends Donald Trump ‘live in my house for one week' message
Oleksandr Usyk has invited United States president Donald Trump to live in his house for one week to better understand what is unfolding in the war in Ukraine. Trump vowed to resolve the conflict 'in 24 hours' upon taking office but more than three years on from Russia president Vladimir Putin launching a full scale invasion of Ukraine, no end appears in sight. Advertisement Usyk, the former undisputed world champion at cruiserweight and heavyweight, painted a bleak picture of what life is like in Ukraine and believes Trump needs to have a clearer comprehension of the situation. 'I advise American president Donald Trump to go to Ukraine and live in my house for one week, only one week,' Usyk, the WBC, WBA and WBO heavyweight champion, told the BBC. Oleksandr Usyk is the WBC, WBA and WBO heavyweight champion (Nick Potts/PA) 'Watch what is going on. Every night there are bombs, rockets flying above my house. Sport Merab Dvalishvili stops Sean O'Malley in Round 3 a... Read More 'People who don't live in Ukraine, who don't support Ukraine, who haven't watched what's going on, don't understand what's going on.' Advertisement Usyk, who has won all 23 of his professional contests, is currently in a training camp to prepare for a rematch with IBF champion Daniel Dubois on July 19 at Wembley Stadium. 'I worry about what happens in my country,' 38-year-old Usyk added. 'It's very bad because Ukrainian people have died. It's not just military people – children, women, grandmothers and grandfathers, too.'
Daily Mail
15 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Wall Street titan slams Trump's mega-bill
Billionaire Ken Griffin has sided with Elon Musk in his attack on Donald Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill'. The Citadel CEO warned the act will 'add several trillion dollars' to the national debt, which will soon surpass $37 trillion. Unlike Musk, who called the bill a ' disgusting abomination,' Griffin criticized the legislation in more conciliatory terms. 'The bill will unquestionably add several trillion dollars,' Griffin said Thursday at the 2025 Forbes Iconoclast Summit in New York City. 'The challenge with the legislation is there's not enough tough decisions... around how we're going to put our fiscal house in order.' Griffin made his concerns known about runaway government spending after the Congressional Budget Office estimated the GOP budget bill would add $2.4 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years. Much of this comes down to the bill's extension of the 2017 Trump tax cuts, which will decrease the revenue coming into the government. Griffin, who voted for Trump in the 2024 election, did not say he disagreed with the extension of the prior tax cuts. But he did take issue with even more tax relief for businesses. 'The continued reduction in tax rates for small and medium enterprise businesses; I'm not sure what we're going to achieve with that,' said Griffin, who is estimated to have a net worth of $44.5 billion. Griffin cast the bill, which is still winding its way through the Senate, as poorly thought out and dangerous to the nation's finances. 'You cannot run deficits of 6 or 7 percent [higher than GDP] at full employment after years of growth. That's just fiscally irresponsible,' said Griffin, who is worth $44.5 billion. 'There are a lot of question marks in the bill as to why we're continuing to increase our tax cuts when we have a fiscal deficit of this magnitude,' he added. approached Griffin's team and the White House for comment. Griffin also warned that if America's leaders fail to reign in spending, they risk a total collapse of US bond markets. Last week, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon sounded a similar alarm , predicting that at some point, investors will lose confidence in the US government's ability to service its debt. 'US default prices are probably the same as Italy or Greece,' Griffin said in reference to credit default swap markets where investors can bet on countries failing to meet their debt obligations. The consequences of a default - i.e. the country running out of money to pay its bills - would be 'catastrophic' for the US and the global economy, former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said. The stock market would almost certainly crash in such a scenario, with investors around the world coming to the understanding that the US - thought to be the most stable government in the world - could not fulfill its financial obligations for the first time in its nearly 250 years of existence. Back in April, when Trump unveiled and quickly paused his wide scale Liberation Day tariffs, multiple reports suggested that his U-turn was prompted by the major sell off in US bonds. Trump appeared to acknowledge this market turmoil at the time, saying: 'People were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit out of line.' Griffin didn't limit his criticisms of the administration to uncertainty on US debt or the big beautiful bill, which Trump wants passed by the Fourth of July. He also slammed the president for his ongoing trade policy, largely governed by historically-high tariffs. He said the tariffs have 'really taken their toll already on our economy' and have called 'into question American exceptionalism.' His firm Citadel has already cut its estimate for US economic growth by about half since Trump took office in January. As a parting shot at the president, Griffin decried Trump's decision to tear into Walmart CEO Doug McMillon for warning customers that the big-box retailer may have to increase prices thanks to tariffs. 'Walmart should STOP trying to blame Tariffs as the reason for raising prices throughout the chain. Walmart made BILLIONS OF DOLLARS last year, far more than expected. Between Walmart and China they should, as is said, 'EAT THE TARIFFS,' and not charge valued customers ANYTHING, Trump posted to Truth Social in May.
The Guardian
16 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Trump tariffs could ‘wipe out' European steel sector, senior industry figure says
Europe's steel industry faces being 'wiped out' in the face of Donald Trump's prohibitive 50% tariffs, high energy costs and a mountain of cheaper Chinese steel, one of Germany's biggest industrial groups has warned. Ilse Henne, a board member at the steel, engineering and chemicals group ThyssenKrupp, said the industry faced an existential crisis after the US president's decision last week to double tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from 25% to 50%. Asked at the European Policy Centre conference on security in Brussels if she 'feared a wipeout', she replied: 'Of course.' Henne, who is chief executive of ThyssenKrupp Materials Services, told the Guardian: 'Steel is at the beginning of the value chain, so you create a lot of instability for all these supply chains that get disrupted that now all of a sudden have to deal with much more expensive steel.' Steel and aluminium are foundational industries, central to everything from submarines, aircraft and cars to everyday products such as stainless steel cutlery, food mixers and joists in housing. 'If the European steel industry disappears, we will have a lot of collateral damage,' said Henne. 'A weak European steel industry is not only a weak European steel industry. It also puts all the other steps in the industry and the value chain in danger.' She said Europe must step in to save the sector because it was fundamental for military security and was a large employer, and if it failed, the continent would be left reliant on the US and China for a key manufacturing material. There is also the growing problem of cheap Chinese steel imports, something the European Commission has in its sights in current talks with Beijing over its dumping of goods in the EU, which are also covering the oversupply of cars and fast fashion. Chinese steel imports soared by 36% in the first quarter of 2025, according to Eurostat. According to Henne, Russian steel is still appearing on the market, at a level of 3m-4m tonnes a year, just short of the 3.8m tonnes the EU as a whole exports to the US. The US doubling of the tariff on steel and aluminum imports does not apply to the UK, which will continue to pay 25% until 9 July and is racing to implement the terms of a bilateral deal struck last month that would take the rate down to zero. Ministers are working to ensure the UK's biggest player in the sector, Tata Steel, is not excluded from the deal because it has begun importing semi-finished products from India and Europe since closing its blast furnace in south Wales last year. This could breach US rules that require all steel to be 'melted and poured' in the country from which it is imported. US representatives also have concerns that British Steel, which is owned by China's Jingye group, could be used as a 'back door' to bring in Chinese products. The UK government used emergency legislation to take control of the company's plant in Scunthorpe, and according to the Sunday Times, ministers now face a standoff with Jingye over a £1bn-plus compensation claim to get it to relinquish its interest. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion Henne said Trump's tariffs strategy could backfire and kill US heavy industries rather than deliver the revival he has promised. 'Following the 50% tariff increase, all US steel producers have immediately bumped up their prices. So the cost of manufacturing has gone up,' she said. The impact 'is a lesson that the US has to learn, unfortunately, I believe, the hard way,' she said. 'What they are doing is actually limiting their own growth potential.' In its second quarter outlook report issued last Thursday, Eurofer, the EU steel trade association, said the US tariffs had dealt 'a severe blow' to recovery expectations. It has called on the EU to bring in 'emergency' measures to help save the industry. 'There is a lot that we can do to save the steel industry,' said Henne, calling on the European Commission to do more to ensure hydrogen came on stream at a competitive price to reduce the reliance on oil- and gas-fuelled furnaces. 'Reducing the tariffs would be a good thing, but equally important for us is competitive energy pricing,' she said.
