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The Independent
24-04-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Why Crimea matters so much to Putin
Crimea is footnoted in British history for Cardigan and the disastrous Charge of the Light Brigade. To Vladimir Putin it's where history itself must turn. Donald Trump, taking an 18th century approach as a might-is-righter, has said that the peninsula was captured without a fight by Russia from Ukraine and therefore should stay in Putin's fist. Of all the 20 per cent of Ukraine 's territory taken after Russia invaded Crimea in 2014 and launched its wider Anschluss in 2022, Crimea is the greatest Russian prize. Whoever controls Sevastopol is likely to dominate the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. Outside of Tartus, which Russia lost recently in Syria, it is – or was – Russia's only warm-weather port. Moscow's claim to it has been undermined by the fact that it was ceded to Ukraine under the Soviet Union in 1954. The claim, now enshrined in an illegal annexation of Crimea into the Russian Federation, is further underpinned by waves of Russian settlement and forced removal of local people over at least two centuries that have left it with a Tartar heritage by a Russian ethnic and linguistic majority. After 2014 it was common in Moscow's bars and restaurants for people to remark how happy they were for it's 'return' amid rose-tinted memories for sunny beach holidays in a former colony. They've forgotten the Holodomor, when decisions from Moscow led to millions of Ukrainians starving. They've ignored the uprisings against efforts to eradicate every trace of Ukraine's language, its history, and its culture under Russian rule from the Tsars to Stalin and Putin. The mass deportations of Cossacks from their homeland to Siberia? Not even a nod. Trump won't know any of this either. Despite his plea to Putin for an end to airstrikes against Ukraine in the wake of a deadly attack on Kyiv into Thursday – writing 'Vladimir, STOP!' on social media – all Trump cares about is this war being over, no matter the cost to Ukraine's history and future. The latest chapter of Russian aggression was unleashed when 'little green men' – Russian Spetsnaz special forces commandos – used the Russian navy presence, on a leasehold, in Sevastopol, as a bridgehead to seize the peninsular in 2014. It was launched following a well tested Putin programme which he had pioneered in Georgia. Russian speaking residents of Georgia, and Ukraine (including Crimea) were encouraged to complain about discrimination on the basis of their heritage. In Post Soviet nations many missed the certainty that being Russian brought. They resented finding themselves in junior new states, and in a minority. In Crimea, their complaints served as an excuse of a rescue mission. Simultaneously Moscow-backed 'separatists' in Ukraine's east also rose and demanded autonomy from Kyiv. Putin sent in Cossacks from Rostov, Slav nationalists from Serbia, and reinforced the 'uprising' with regular Russian forces. In Kramatorsk, in Donetsk region neighbours turned on each other the police split into rival loyal or pro-Putin factions. I picked my way through the provincial capitol on floors slippery with spent machine gun rounds not long after Crimea fell. The town, 90 per cent Russian speaking, drove out Russian sympathisers and remains a battered and bloodied provisional capital of a province now illegally annexed by Putin. Donetsk, the original seat of government is now ruled by Moscow's proxies on the other side of the front line after intense and bloody fighting. Putin's expansion of territory in 2014 could not have been achieved without the bridgehead of operations being established in Crimea. It was even more crucial to his full scale invasion of 2022. He used the peninsula as a logistics hub, building a bridge to the Russian mainland to supply the forces her has crammed into the arid region. Moscow, following conventional doctrine, destroyed most of Ukraine's navy there and used Sevastopol as its main base. The Kremlin's admirals didn't reckon on Ukraine's innovation. It's navy now reduced to a handful of small craft it switched to missiles and drones. First sinking the pride of the Black Sea Fleet, the Moskva, before using drones to batter Russia's navy out of Ukrainian occupied areas and into its home ports. If Moscow's allowed back into Sevastopol, as Trump would want, Russia's naval reconstruction and regeneration will continue apace and in now time assume total domination again. Meanwhile Crimea remains in Russian hands and the main source of rockets and missiles fired against Ukraine, Russia's main base for air defences, and its command and control hub for the whole Ukrainian campaign. That's why it matters to Putin. And now Trump.
South China Morning Post
22-02-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
How generations of A-listers have kept the cardigan current
Taylor Swift has always been a cardigan fan, while Kendall Jenner and Anne Curtis are just two more in the latest generation of A-listers to give the homely button-up look some love. Of all wardrobe staples, from the chic leather biker jacket to the trusty flannel shirt , perhaps no single item has been quite as overlooked as the cardigan, despite its many revivals over the years. First invented in the late 1800s by its namesake – the stylish, wealthy and arrogant British Army officer James Brudenell, the 7th Earl of Cardigan, also infamous for the ill-fated Charge of the Light Brigade – some stories have it that the original, makeshift version was created by complete accident after the tails of the earl's knitted waistcoat caught fire and burned off. Anne Curtis showed us how to rock a cute and sexy cardie look in October 2021. Photo: @annecurtissmith/Instagram In the decades since, you could say the cardigan's consistent comeback has been a matter of accident too – its ability to keep up with the times subject to changing societal attitudes and consequently drastic transformations. The humble cardie eventually evolved from a military status symbol , and morphed into its more casual modern-day iteration. By the 1940s, university women were wearing baggy button-up jumpers – which were even denigrated as 'sloppy joes' – in protest at the restrictive women's styles and social order of decades past. But how did these cosy knits, once relegated to the back of a 'sloppy' woman's wardrobe, become the star of the show? Jacquemus La Maille Pralù cropped cardigan. Photo: Handout As with so many other foundational trends in fashion, it was Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel who predicted the cardigan craze that would eventually take over the world. The designer reportedly created the modern prototype of a woman's cardigan in the 1920s after remarking that putting on regular pullovers would mess up her hair, and the history of the garment has been intertwined with that of the French maison ever since, with different variations on the button-up featuring in many of its collections to this day. A simple innovation born out of inconvenience spawned a movement which, by the 1950s, made the 'sweater girl' the pin-up model of the moment, with Hollywood actresses like Lana Turner and Jayne Mansfield sporting the simple cover-up, slung around the shoulders with their form-fitting outfits peeking out from underneath. Fast-forward to the 1990s and another blonde bombshell, Cameron Diaz , would make the cardie chic again by buttoning hers once down the middle to expose her camisole in the hit film There's Something About Mary . Kendall Jenner in barely-there Jacquemus, in August 2021. Photo: @kendalljenner/Instagram In the early 2010s, Taylor Swift championed cardigan use for a preppy chic look, seen in the heyday of American retailers like and Vineyard Vines. And then in 2020, there was Swift again with the coronavirus-era cottagecore trend, which helped inspire the album Folklore , its lead single 'Cardigan', and of course, titular merchandise made for fans self-isolating at home. A century after Chanel first led the way, cardigans have been catapulted back into the public eye again thanks to a much younger independent French fashion brand. Slinkier and sexier than the jumpers of years past, La Maille cardigans from Jacquemus' autumn/winter 2021 show quickly became cult classics in various vibrant colours and even cropped varieties – a must-have for stylish celebrities and influencers everywhere. This version was designed to wear with nothing under it, a styling tip that perhaps hints at the cardigan's final form as a high fashion staple that can stand on its own in any season, bringing the heat in more ways than one.
