Crimea was most turk and German until the Soviets starved and deported the true locals.
Soviets relocated thousands of Russians into eastern Ukraine and Crimea after murdering the locals.They are not true locals.They are considered invaders .
Actually, Crimea has been under Russia -rightly or wrongly - since 1774. The Turks controlled it for about 200 years before that, even though most of its population were ethnic Europeans and mostly Orthodox Christians. Even after the Russians got control, the Tatars, who were Muslims allied with the Ottoman Empire, continued to raid it for slaves.
In the final slave raid of 1796, the Tatars took some 20,000 European slaves for sale on the ME slave markets. Nonetheless, the current Crimean government has guaranteed that the existing Tatar minority in Crimea will be given rights like all other citizens.
So the Crimea has a much more complicated history than we appreciate, and we shouldn’t be too hasty to support the Ukrainians (who have a very limited goal in the Western Ukraine, but because by an historical accident, these other places belonged to them, are setting off a conflagration).
Actually, Crimea’s Russian population lived in the Crimea since the 18th Century when Catherine overthrew the Crimean Tatar Khanate and made it part of Russia, not the Ukraine. Furthermore, Eastern Ukraine is still mostly ethnic Ukrainian in population, albet Russified.
Crimea was given to the Ukraine by Russia in 1954. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Crimea and Ukraine have had several “issues”.