Crimea was NEVER ukrainian.
It was “The Autonomous Republic of Crimea” with its own Parliment, Prime Minister, government and budget.
How was Crimea separated from Russia?
In 1954, a controversial decision of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, himself an ethnic Ukrainian, transferred the Crimea peninsula to the Ukrainian SSR, extracting it from Russian territory.
Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, Khrushchev’s “gift” has been widely criticized by many Russians, including the majority of those living in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.
In 1991, the people of Crimea took part in a referendum, which proclaimed the region an Autonomous Republic within the Soviet Union, with 93.26 percent of the voters supporting the move.
TODAY the ultimate goal of the ethnic Russian population in Crimea is to hold a referendum on whether the region should retain its current status as an autonomous region in Ukraine, to become independent, or become part of Russia again. In the meantime, they claim to have a right to disobey orders of the “illegal” government in Kiev.