It’s been Russian since 1783. That is longer than Ohio has been part of the USA. Catherine the Great established Sevastopol as a Russian navy base.
It has been their base since then, except for when the original nazis took over in WWII.
It was never part of Ukraine until Khrushchev moved administratively inside the USSR. But beyond that, it was never run from Kiev.
When the Kiev kids said they were going to make it into a NATO Navy base, that was idiotic. Russia would let NATO take Crimea about the same time we would give up Pearl Harbor.
And last but not least, here are the Brits, once again with their psycho obsession of pushing to eject the Russians from Crimea. The Brits invaded Crimea in 1850 once.
i recall on FR discussion of ads for bids for contract work on a naval facility in crimea after the ukr coup.
i think I and certainly others at the time said there was no way russia was letting itself be ejected from its naval facilities.
re: The Brits invaded Crimea in 1850 once.
For those unfamiliar, The Charge of the Light Brigade was written to commemorate an action during the Crimean War involving British Cavalry. Probably a top ten misuse of cavalry ever, up there with Custer at the Little Big Horn.