Why Crimea has become the worst enemy of Russia. Putin explained why Crimea was and became Russian

Annexation of Crimea to Russia in 2014 - the withdrawal of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea from Ukraine, followed by its admission to the Russian Federation and the formation of a new subject of the Russian Federation. The basis for the entry of Crimea into the Russian Federation was a referendum of the inhabitants of the autonomy, almost 97% voted for joining Russia. This was the first case of the formation of a new subject of the Russian Federation in the recent history of Russia.

Prerequisites for the annexation of Crimea to Russia

For 23 years Kyiv has not built a clear policy towards autonomy. For 23 years, Kyiv subjected Crimea to forced and clumsy Ukrainization, and no matter how much they talk about the “annexation of Crimea”, it all started with an appeal by the ARC parliament, which asked Russia to protect the peninsula from the new gangster Kyiv authorities. Russia provided this protection, despite the expected complications in the international arena. There is plenty of documentary evidence that the population of the peninsula associates itself exclusively with Russia and wants to be a subject of the Russian Federation. However, anyone who has ever been to the Crimea, which of the Crimea is "Ukraine", is clear and so.

Background to the annexation of Crimea to Russia

The political crisis erupted in Ukraine at the end of November 2013, when the Cabinet of Ministers announced the suspension of the country's European integration due to onerous conditions. Mass protests, called "Euromaidan", took place throughout Ukraine and in January resulted in clashes between armed radicals and law enforcement agencies. The street fights, during which the opposition repeatedly used firearms and Molotov cocktails, resulted in about 100 casualties.

On February 22, 2014, a violent seizure of power took place in the country. The Verkhovna Rada, violating the agreements reached between President Viktor Yanukovych and opposition leaders, changed the constitution, changed the leadership of the parliament and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and removed the head of state from power, who was subsequently forced to leave Ukraine, fearing for his life. On February 27, the Ukrainian parliament approved the composition of the so-called "government of people's trust", Arseniy Yatsenyuk became prime minister, and. about. President Alexander Turchinov.

First of all, the new government and the Rada adopted a law on the release of Yulia Tymoshenko and on the abolition of the law on the foundations of the state language policy of July 3, 2012, authored by Vadim Kolesnichenko from the Party of Regions. The law provided for the possibility of official bilingualism in regions where the number of national minorities exceeds 10%. And then Sevastopol rose up.

Subsequently, and about. President Turchynov promised that he would veto the law on the languages ​​of national minorities, but it was too late. By this time, the revolutionary flame engulfed the entire peninsula.

The first in the Crimea categorically refused to obey the new leadership of Ukraine - Sevastopol. A mass rally was held on Nakhimov Square, attended by about 30,000 people. Sevastopol has not remembered such a large number of people at a rally since the 1990s.

The people of Sevastopol removed the mayor of the city, Vladimir Yatsub, from power and elected a mayor from Russia, a local businessman, Alexei Mikhailovich Chaly. The ex-mayor acknowledged his authority, explaining that "the authority that appointed me no longer exists." It was decided not to follow the orders of Kyiv, not to recognize the new government and not to pay taxes to Kyiv.

Following Sevastopol, the Crimean authorities refused to obey the new leadership of Ukraine. Self-defense detachments were organized on the peninsula, armed people were seen at military and civilian facilities (Ukrainian sources claimed that they were Russian military, the Russian authorities denied this). The new Prime Minister of Crimea, the leader of the "Russian Unity" Sergei Aksyonov turned to Vladimir Putin with a request for help in ensuring peace. Shortly thereafter, the Federation Council of the Russian Federation allowed the use of Russian troops on the territory of Ukraine. True, there was no need for this.

Against this background, the new Ukrainian authorities accused Russia of provoking a military conflict and attempting to annex Crimea. The clanging of weapons began: a general mobilization was announced, the troops were put on alert, and the "National Guard" was created. Deputy of the Batkivshchyna party Gennady Moskal, in an interview on TV, revealed a military secret: nothing travels and nothing flies in Ukraine. This confirmed the transfer to the side of the Crimean authorities of the 204th Fighter Aviation Brigade of the Ukrainian Air Force, which is armed with MiG-29 fighters and training L-39, based at the Belbek airfield. Of the 45 fighters and four training aircraft, only four MiG-29s and one L-39 were operational. The relocation of the ships of the Ukrainian Navy from Sevastopol to Odessa did not pass without incidents. Of their 4 ships, two had to return due to a breakdown.

Armed men in unmarked military uniforms, dubbed “little green men” by the Ukrainian media, along with Crimean self-defense units, seized one military unit after another without firing a single shot or spilling a single drop of blood. In the end, all significant objects of the Crimean infrastructure began to be controlled by self-defense units. Ukrainian Rear Admiral Denis Berezovsky was removed from command of the Ukrainian Navy and on the same day took the oath of allegiance to the people of Crimea. Disbanded and humiliated by the new authorities in Kyiv, the Berkut, which participated in the Kyiv battles, stood up for the defense of Crimea, and Crimea for it.

The Ukrainian military had a choice: either take an oath to the Crimean people, or they were given the opportunity to freely travel to Ukraine, but they were abandoned. None of the leaders of the Ukrainian General Staff even tried to contact the commanders of military units on the peninsula in order to set the task. Of the 19 thousand who served, only 4 agreed to remain in the Ukrainian army.

The situation in the Crimea

Unlike Kyiv, where after the Maidan they shot traffic police officers, seized banks, mocked law enforcement officers, the situation in Crimea was quiet and calm. No one, like Sasha Bely, came to meetings with a Kalashnikov assault rifle. The only reminders of the revolutionary state of Crimea were checkpoints at the entrances to Sevastopol. No one fled from Crimea, except for the Crimean Tatars, which was happily reported by the Ukrainian media that 100 families of Crimean Tatars were received in Lvov. By the way, when Catherine II annexed the Crimea, the Tatars also fled, but only to Turkey.

An event worthy of attention about the turbulent situation in Crimea was a rally of many thousands (according to various sources, from 3 to 5 thousand) of the Crimean Tatar people in Simferopol with a small brawl with participants in the pro-Russian rally. The rally participants demanded the early termination of the powers of the Supreme Council of Crimea and the holding of early elections. In addition, the chairman of the Mejlis, Refat Chubarov, said that the Crimean Tatars give the authorities of Simferopol ten days to demolish the monument to Vladimir Lenin in the square of the same name and throughout the peninsula. In case of non-compliance with the requirements, he threatened active measures. Earlier, the chairman of the Mejlis stated that the Tatars were ready to rebuff the intentions to withdraw Crimea from Ukraine.

After a single rally, the Crimean Tatars calmed down and, moreover, thoroughly. Several peaceful rallies were held in the cities. Unlike Kyiv, tires were not burned here and barricades were not erected.

Not a single military man was visible on the entire southern coast of Crimea. In Simferopol, Yalta and other cities, panic was mainly created by various mommy forums on social networks.

The Ukrainian media called the Russian military occupiers. But no one fought against the occupiers, no one shed blood, and it was necessary to try very hard to see them.

There were no interruptions in food, gasoline, electricity and gas.

Referendum on the annexation of Crimea to Russia

On February 27, 2014, the Parliament of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea set the date for the referendum to be May 25, 2014 - the day of the presidential elections in Ukraine. But then the date was postponed twice, first to March 30, then to March 16.

The predictability of the results was obvious. With the exception of the Crimean Tatars (and there are only 12% of them on the peninsula), 96.77% voted for joining Russia. 99% of Crimean Tatars ignored the referendum.

Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk expressed surprise why the local authorities of the autonomy, following the results of the vote count, the so-called referendum, "showed a result of 96.77% of the votes, and not 101%."

All foreign correspondents working in Crimea said that nine out of ten residents of the peninsula said they would vote or had already voted for Russia. The international observers who agreed to work at the referendum agreed that the vote was fair - the absolute majority of those who voted chose Russia. On the squares of Simferopol, Yalta, and especially Sevastopol, there was an explosion of patriotism: such enthusiasm and euphoria with which the Crimeans sang the Russian anthem and waved the tricolors has probably not been seen since the end of World War II.

Annexation of Crimea to Russia

The Crimean referendum was not recognized in the European Union and the United States, as well as its results. But Crimeans have little interest in the reaction of Western leaders and international organizations: March 16, 2014 is the day that went down in history. 23 years after the collapse of the USSR, Crimea is again part of Russia.

The referendum is the starting point, not the end of the struggle for Crimea. Now the irreversibility of this decision must be defended at the international level, made final and not subject to revision. This will be very difficult to do, because Moscow is practically alone. In the international arena, its actions are at best neutral (China, Iran). The entire Western world is against. In the forefront, of course, the United States and Eastern Europe, led by the Baltic countries - the latter, denied the right to determine Crimea immediately and completely.

For Ukraine, the bitter and hard truth is that its two-million-strong region simply did not want to live with it anymore. Any reasoning that the leadership of the ARC had no right to call a referendum, especially since “Russia was voted at gunpoint”, is reasoning from impotent jealousy. By chance, the region that got it for nothing thought that Ukraine had no prospects and was not capable of becoming different. Over the 23 years of independence, the country has degraded more and more, losing out of the hands of the potential of a great power that it had at the time of its exit from the USSR.

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The ceremony of signing an agreement on the admission of the Republic of Crimea to the Russian Federation.

235 years ago, on April 19, 1783, Catherine II issued a manifesto, according to which the Crimea, Taman and Kuban became part of the Russian Empire. Thus ended the centuries-old confrontation between the steppe and the Slavs. The Moscow kingdom fought for a long time with the Crimean Khanate, Devlet Giray burned Moscow, only the great victory at Molodi saved Russia from subjugation to the Crimea.

Under Ivan the Terrible, Moscow fought on two fronts, with the Polish-Lithuanian state and the Crimean Khanate. The West won, but the Muscovite state won over the steppe, and this was a huge achievement: the Crimea tried to repeat the success of the Golden Horde and make Russia its vassal.

Tatar Crimea was a multinational state. Alans and Polovtsians, Armenians, Greeks, Goths and descendants of soldiers from the Anglo-Saxon squad that was in the Byzantine service lived in it. According to legend, the Saxons, who moved to Byzantium after the Normans conquered England, were sent to serve in the Crimea. There they married girls from Gothic families (Christian Goths, immigrants from Scandinavia, settled in the Crimea during the Great Migration) and formed a small, ephemeral state - New England. Under the rule of the Crimean khans and the patronage of the Ottoman Empire, the remains of these peoples mostly adopted Islam. Crimea made raids on the Slavic lands, through it millions of captives went to the slave markets. He grew rich, but his prosperity was ephemeral.

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Two great neighbors bordered the Crimean Khanate: Poland and the Moscow kingdom. The Polish kingdom did not know a strong central authority, and gradually tended to decline, and Moscow became stronger and stronger. The Poles, with varying success, caught the flying Tatar detachments, and Moscow fenced off the Crimeans with fortresses and fences and moved further and further deep into the steppe frontier, turning wastelands into arable land. Crimea was paid "commemoration", and this continued until Peter I, but the balance of power shifted more and more in favor of Russia. The Great March on Moscow, which the Crimea undertook in 1591, ended in a rout under the walls of the city, and this did not happen again. But Crimea continued to be an enemy of the Russian kingdom: during the Prut campaign, the Tatar cavalry inflicted great harm on the army of Peter I.

In the middle of the 18th century, the time for revenge came: Minikh, Lassi and Dolgoruky invaded the Crimea and burned the cities, the khanate was ruined. It could not defend itself, the degraded Ottoman Empire could not defend it - the annexation of Crimea to Russia was inevitable. This was connected with dynastic intrigues, popular uprisings and great bloodshed, but in the end the last Crimean Khan, together with a small court, went to live in Russia, and the peninsula became part of the empire.

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The wars of Catherine the Great were costly: they were accompanied by huge human losses, and the biological status of the population of the Russian Empire worsened. Men became lower, this went on for a long time. These wars were financed by loans from Dutch bankers: the debts were paid only at the end of the next century. Expenses for the army caused monstrous inflation and financial breakdown, which was overcome only under the grandson of the Empress, Nicholas I. But as a result, the Russian Empire became a different country, with a large population, lying in the zone of confident farming with black soil, obtained thanks to the Crimea access to the Black Sea.

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Crimea was a weak point of the empire: during the Eastern War of 1853–56, the Russian army was defeated here and the fleet was killed; for the second time, Russia entered into a confrontation with the West over Crimea today. By this time, it had become an all-Russian dream, a symbol of the happy Soviet era, when the sun was brighter, ice cream was sweeter, and rest in the Crimea seemed like a ticket to paradise. The peninsula has turned into the personification of something intangible, but extremely important, so it is dear to people.

For centuries, the Crimea plundered the Russian lands, and the Moscow kingdom hatched plans to conquer the Crimea, poor Soviet people enjoyed the Crimean sun for decades, and as a result, such a strong bond was formed that neither weapons nor time seem to take.

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On Tuesday, March 18, at 15:00 Moscow time, both chambers of the Federal Assembly - the State Duma and the Federation Council - gathered in the St. Federation. State Duma deputies, members of the Federation Council, regional leaders and representatives of civil society greeted Putin's first words with standing ovations.

After the announcement of the Message, which was repeatedly interrupted by applause and shouts of “Russia!”, the signing of an interstate agreement between Russia and the Republic of Crimea on the entry of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol into the Russian Federation as subjects took place in the same hall. The agreement was signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, chairman of the State Council of Crimea Vladimir Konstantinov, head of the Crimean government Sergei Aksenov and head of the coordinating council for the organization of the Sevastopol city government Alexei Chaly.

Thus, for the official entry of Crimea and Sevastopol into the Russian Federation, it remains to ratify the agreement in the Russian parliament and pass a test in the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation for compliance with this agreement with the Constitution of the Russian Federation.

State Duma deputies, who came to the Kremlin with St. George ribbons on their chests, have already announced that they will ratify the document in an accelerated mode. Tomorrow morning, the deputies are scheduled to meet with the Crimean delegation. And at 19:00, Speaker of the Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko and members of the upper house will meet with the Crimean delegation.

It should be noted that on Wednesday, March 19, the President will hold a meeting with members of the government, at which the tasks set by him in the December Message dedicated to the promotion of the inaugural May decrees (2012) will be discussed. However, the situation with Crimea will also be discussed there, since among the topics of the meeting there is also the topic of the budgets of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation for 2014-2016. And Crimea has already received financial assistance from the Russian Federation for 15 billion rubles, and after the admission of Crimea and Sevastopol to the Russian Federation, amendments will have to be made to the federal budget of the Russian Federation.

Putin was greeted with a standing ovation

Putin's statement in connection with Crimea's application for admission to the Russian Federation was broadcast not only by federal channels of the Russian Federation, but also at a rally in the center of Sevastopol, as well as on TV of the Republic of Crimea.

There was no legislative need in today's Address by Putin, however, the Russian President, who signed a decree the day before recognizing the Republic of Crimea as an independent state, got the opportunity to explain to the whole world Russia's point of view on the situation around Crimea. This is his “personal desire” to deliver the Address, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov explained.

As the president said, relations with the fraternal Ukrainian people have always been and will be key for Russia. “Yes, we understood all this well, felt it with our hearts and souls, but we had to proceed from the prevailing realities and build good neighborly relations with independent Ukraine on a new basis,” the head of state said.

The referendum in Crimea was held in full accordance with democratic procedures, the President said, recalling that more than 82% of voters took part in the voting. “More than 96% were in favor of reunification with Russia. The figures are extremely convincing,” the head of the Russian state emphasized.

“In order to understand why such a choice was made, it is enough to know the history of Crimea, to know what Russia means for Crimea and Crimea for Russia,” he said.

According to Putin, literally everything in Crimea is permeated with a common history and pride. “Here is Ancient Chersonese, where the holy prince Vladimir was baptized. His spiritual feat - the conversion to Orthodoxy - predetermined the common cultural, value, civilizational basis that unites the peoples of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, ”the head of the Russian state is convinced. “In Crimea, there are graves of Russian soldiers, whose courage in 1783 brought Crimea under Russian rule. Crimea is Sevastopol, a city of legend, a city of great destiny, a fortress city and the birthplace of the Russian Black Sea navy,” Putin stressed.

“Crimea is Balaklava and Kerch, Malakhov Kurgan, Sapun Mountain, each of the places is sacred to us, these are symbols of military glory and unprecedented valor,” the president noted. “Crimea is a unique fusion of cultures and traditions of different peoples, and in this way it is so similar to Greater Russia, where not a single ethnic group has disappeared or dissolved for centuries.” “Russians and Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars, representatives of other nations lived and worked side by side on the Crimean land, preserving their identity, traditions, language and faith,” the president said and called it “a blatant historical injustice” that Crimea is outside the borders of Russia.

“All these years, both citizens and many public figures have repeatedly raised this topic: they said that Crimea is a primordially Russian land, and Sevastopol is a Russian city,” Putin said.

The Russian-speaking population of Ukraine is tired of attempts to "forced assimilate" it, and the entire Ukrainian people are tired of the actions of the authorities in Kyiv, for decades "milking" the country and forcing people to leave for "daily earnings," Putin said. “Time after time, attempts were made to deprive Russians of their historical memory, and sometimes their native language, to make them an object of forced assimilation,” he said, noting that “Russians, like other citizens of Ukraine, suffered from a constant, permanent political and state crisis, which has been shaking Ukraine for more than 20 years.”

“I understand why people in Ukraine wanted change. Over the years of autonomy - independence, the authorities, as they say, got tired of them, just got sick of it, ”said the President of the Russian Federation.

According to him, "presidents, prime ministers, deputies of the Rada changed, but their attitude towards their country and their people did not change: they milked Ukraine, fought among themselves for powers, assets and financial flows."

“At the same time, those in power were little interested in what and how ordinary people live, including why millions of citizens do not see prospects for themselves in their homeland and are forced to go abroad for daily wages. I want to note, not to some Silicon Valley, but specifically for daily wages, ”Putin said, recalling that almost 3 million people worked in Russia last year alone.

Nationalists, Russophobes, anti-Semites largely determine the course of today's Ukraine, said Russian President Vladimir Putin. “The main perpetrators of the coup were nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes and anti-Semites. It is they who in many ways determine life in Ukraine to this day," Putin said in his address.

He stated that there is still no legitimate government in Ukraine, and many government agencies are under the control of radical elements. “There is still no legitimate executive power in Ukraine. There is no one to talk to,” Putin said, addressing the Federal Assembly. “Many government agencies have been usurped by impostors. At the same time, they do not control anything in the country, and they themselves are often under the control of radicals,” the president emphasized. “Even getting an appointment with some ministers of the current government is possible only with the permission of the Maidan militants. This is not a joke, these are the realities of today's life," Putin said.

“I understand well those who came to the Maidan with peaceful slogans, speaking out against corruption, inefficient public administration, and poverty. The right to peaceful protest, democratic procedures, elections are there to change the government, which does not suit the people.” “But those who were behind the latest events in Ukraine pursued other goals. They were preparing a coup d'état. Next. Planned to seize power, did not stop at nothing. Terror, murders, and pogroms were used," Putin said.

“First of all, the new so-called authorities introduced a scandalous bill to revise the language policy, which directly infringed on the rights of national minorities. True, the foreign sponsors of these today's politicians, the curators of the current authorities immediately pulled back the initiators of this undertaking. They are smart people, we must give them their due, and they understand what attempts to build an ethnically pure Ukrainian state will lead to. The bill was put aside, but obviously in reserve, ”Putin said.

As for the statements about the alleged aggression or annexation, the president said that there was no aggression or intervention in Crimea and thanked the Ukrainian military personnel stationed on the peninsula who did not provoke an armed conflict.

"I want to thank those Ukrainian servicemen - and this is a considerable contingent, 22 thousand people with full weapons - who did not go to the bloodshed and did not stain themselves with blood," Putin said in his Address to the Federal Assembly.

“We are being told about some kind of Russian intervention in Crimea, aggression. It's strange to hear that. I don’t remember a single case from history when an intervention took place without a single shot and without human casualties, ”the President of the Russian Federation emphasized.

He recalled that Russia did not send troops to the Crimea, but only strengthened its grouping, while not exceeding the maximum staff strength stipulated by an international treaty. “Yes, the President of the Russian Federation received from the upper house of parliament the right to use the Armed Forces in Ukraine, but, strictly speaking, he has not even used this right yet. The Russian armed forces did not enter Crimea, they were already there in accordance with the international treaty," Putin said, adding that Russia "did not even exceed the maximum authorized strength of our Armed Forces in Crimea - and it is provided for in the amount of 25,000 people . It just wasn't necessary."

Russia has always met Ukraine halfway, in particular in matters of border delimitation, counting on the interests and rights of Russian citizens on its territory to be respected, President Putin said.

The head of state recalled that at one time he immediately responded to the request of the then President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma to speed up work on the delimitation of borders. “Although, in fact and legally, this finally made Crimea a Ukrainian territory,” he said. The President noted that the main thing then was to prevent territorial disputes. But it was necessary to develop good neighborliness on the basis of international law.

The President also noted that "it would be right if there were three equal languages ​​in Crimea - Russian, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar." “We treat representatives of all nationalities living in Crimea with respect. This is their common home, their small homeland,” Putin said.

As the president stated, all measures must be taken to complete the process of rehabilitation of the Crimean Tatar people, which will restore their rights in full.

The 70-year period of the existence of the Soviet Union has left us with a legacy of many controversial events. History has shed light on some of them, but some still cause fierce controversy.

How did the name of the USSR come about?

As early as 1913, Lenin dreamed of "an enormous historical step from medieval fragmentation to the future socialist unity of all countries." In the first years after the collapse of the empire, the question of such unity arose especially acutely. Stalin proposed that the independent republics formed after the revolution be included in the RSFSR on the basis of autonomy, while Lenin, on the contrary, showing “national liberalism”, called for a federation of republics with equal rights.

On December 30, 1922, the First All-Union Congress of Soviets was held in Moscow, which, based on the Leninist version, adopted a declaration on the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which included the RSFSR, Ukrainian SSR, BSSR and the Transcaucasian SFSR.

It is interesting that formally, according to the Constitution, each of the republics retained the right to secede from the USSR, they could also independently enter into diplomatic relations with foreign states.

Who financed industrialization?

The leadership of the USSR, having only restored the destroyed economy, set the task of catching up with the countries of the West that had gone ahead. This required accelerated industrialization, which required considerable funds.

In 1928, Stalin approved a forced approach, which proposed to eliminate the backlog in two five-year plans. The cost of the economic miracle was to be paid by the peasantry, but this was not enough.

The country needed currency, which the party leadership obtained in various ways, for example, by selling paintings from the Hermitage. But there were other sources, economists say. According to some researchers, the main source of industrialization was the loans of American bankers, who later counted on the creation of a Jewish republic in the Crimea.

Why did Stalin abandon Bolshevism?

Shortly after gaining sole power, Stalin departs from the revolutionary values ​​of Bolshevism. Clear evidence of this is his struggle with the "Leninist Guard". Many of the landmarks set by the October Revolution turned out to be unattainable, and the ideas turned out to be unviable.

Thus, communism became a distant prospect that could not be realized without the establishment of socialism. The Bolshevik slogan "All power to the Soviets!" also underwent a change. Stalin came up with a new formula, where socialism is power concentrated in one hand.

The ideas of internationalism are now being replaced by state patriotism. Stalin promotes the rehabilitation of historical figures and prohibits the persecution of believers.[

Historians are divided on the reasons for Stalin's departure from the Bolshevik slogans. According to some, this is due to the desire to unite the country, while others explain this by the need to change the political course.

Why did Stalin start the purges in 1937?

"Great Terror" 1937-1938 still raises many questions among historians and researchers. Today, few people doubt Stalin's involvement in the "mass purge", opinions differ only when counting the victims. According to some information, the number of those executed for political and criminal cases can reach up to 1 million people.

The opinions of researchers also do not agree on the causes of mass repressions. According to historian Yury Zhukov, the repressions were caused by the confrontation between Stalin and regional party bodies, which, fearing to lose their posts, prevented elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. But another Russian historian Alexei Teplyakov is sure that the Great Terror was an action planned and prepared by Stalin.

For the French historian Nicolas Werth, the repressions became the action of the “social engineering” mechanism, completing the policy of dispossession and deportations. And the German expert Karl Schloegel believes that "terror, initiated by the elite in the name of the great goal of getting rid of enemies, was readily picked up and used by many structures and citizens to solve their problems."

Why did the powerful Red Army suffer defeats in the first months of the war?

The beginning of the Great Patriotic War for the Red Army was catastrophic. By July 10, 1941, the Red Army, according to some sources, lost about 850 thousand people. Historians explain the reasons for the defeats by a complex of various factors that, when combined, led to a disaster.

A special place among such reasons is occupied by the deployment of Soviet troops, which, according to the September 1940 version of the "Fundamentals of Deployment", was designed not for border defense, but for preventive strikes against Germany. The formations of the Red Army, divided into echelons, favored the successful advance of the German troops.

Recently, great emphasis has been placed on the miscalculations of the General Staff, which used the outdated doctrine of warfare. Some researchers, in particular, V. Solovyov and Yu. Kirshin, also find direct culprits - Stalin, Zhukov, Voroshilov, who "did not understand the content of the initial period of the war, made mistakes in planning, in strategic deployment, in determining the direction of the main attack of the German troops ".

Why did Khrushchev condemn Stalin's personality cult?

On February 25, 1956, at the XX Congress of the CPSU, Khrushchev made a report "On the cult of personality and its consequences", in which he mercilessly criticized the former leader. Today, many historians on the whole see behind a correct, albeit biased assessment of Stalin's personality, not only a desire to restore historical justice, but to solve their own problems.

In particular, by shifting all responsibility to Stalin, Khrushchev to some extent relieved himself of part of the blame for participating in mass repressions in Ukraine. “The accusations leveled against Stalin, coupled with the rehabilitation of the victims of unjustified executions, could soften the anger of the population,” writes the American historian Grover Furr.

But there are other hypotheses according to which criticism of Stalin was a weapon in the fight against members of the Presidium - Malenkov, Kaganovich, Molotov, which could interfere with the implementation of Khrushchev's plans to reorganize the state apparatus.

Why was Crimea given to Ukraine?

The transfer of Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954 was a resonant event that resonated many years later. Now the emphasis is not only on the legality of such a procedure, but also on the reasons for such a decision.

Opinions on this matter are different: some argue that in this way the USSR avoided the transfer of Crimea to the Jewish Republic on the "credit history" with American bankers, others suggest that it was a gift to Ukraine in honor of the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the Pereyaslav Rada.

Among the reasons mentioned are unfavorable conditions for farming in the steppe regions of the peninsula and the territorial proximity of Crimea to Ukraine. Many people support the version according to which the “Ukrainization” of Crimea was supposed to contribute to the restoration of the destroyed national economy.

Why sent troops to Afghanistan?

The question of the expediency of bringing Soviet troops into Afghanistan began to be raised already in perestroika times. A moral assessment was also given to the decision of the Soviet leadership, which cost the lives of more than 15 thousand internationalist soldiers.

Today it is already obvious that along with the declared justification for the introduction of a limited contingent of Soviet troops into the territory of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, as assistance to the "friendly Afghan people", there was another, no less weighty reason.

Major General Yuri Drozdov, former head of the Illegal Intelligence Directorate of the KGB of the USSR, noted that the introduction of Soviet troops into Afghanistan was an objective necessity, since US actions intensified in the country, in particular, technical observation posts were advanced to the southern borders of the USSR.

Why did the Politburo decide on perestroika?

By the mid-1980s, the USSR came close to an economic crisis. The devastation in agriculture, the chronic shortage of goods and the lack of industrial development required immediate measures.

It is known that the reforms were developed on behalf of Andropov, but Gorbachev initiated them. “Apparently, comrades, we all need to rebuild,” Gorbachev’s word was picked up by the media and quickly became the slogan of the new ideology.

Today, the organizers of Perestroika are accused of the fact that, consciously or not, the transformations they initiated led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Some researchers argue that the reforms were conceived for the sake of seizing property by the Soviet elite. But Sergei Kara-Murza sees in the victory of Perestroika the result of the activities of Western intelligence agencies. The ideologists of Perestroika themselves have repeatedly stated that the reforms were exclusively of a socio-economic nature.

Who was behind the 1991 coup?

On August 20, 1991, Gorbachev scheduled the signing of the Union Treaty, which was to outline the new position of the Soviet republics. But the event was disrupted by the coup. The conspirators then called the main reason for the coup the need to preserve the USSR. According to the State Emergency Committee, this was done "in order to overcome a deep and comprehensive crisis, political, interethnic and civil confrontation, chaos and anarchy."

But today, many researchers call the August coup a farce and consider the main directors to be those who benefited from the collapse of the country. For example, Mikhail Poltoranin, a former member of the Government of the Russian Federation, claims that "the putsch of 1991 was staged by Boris Yeltsin together with Mikhail Gorbachev."

However, some researchers still believe that the purpose of the GKChP was to seize power, for which they wanted to "overthrow Gorbachev" and "prevent Yeltsin from coming to power."

Crisis in Ukraine

In the struggle for Crimea, not only the strategic position of the peninsula is important for Vladimir Putin. It is so closely connected with Russian history that Russia simply cannot refuse it.

Vladimir Putin likes to make a strong impression. When in 2009 the then Russian Prime Minister dived into the Black Sea in front of the whole country, he immediately managed to create an archaeological sensation, because he emerged holding an ancient amphora in both hands. The photographs of that day had a double meaning: firstly, they testified that Russia was in strong hands, and secondly, that these arms were long and reached the warm, civilized southern seas.

Putin dived on the Taman Peninsula, the eastern part of which is washed by the Sea of ​​Azov. Just a few kilometers to the west rises the Kerch Peninsula, which is part of the Crimean Peninsula and thus belongs to Ukraine. But the amphorae that Putin held in his hands symbolized, among other things, the cultural connection between Crimea and the steppes between the Don and Volga rivers, in other words, between Crimea and Russia.

When Putin today requests information about the combat readiness of his troops, for him it is not only about the strategic importance of Crimea as the place where the base of the Russian Black Sea Fleet is located. The peninsula with its capital in Sevastopol is a great national myth for Russia. Here the tsars made their way to the cold seas, here their soldiers opposed the British and French expeditionary forces, the White Guard, its allies and, finally, the Nazi troops.

Orthodox monks passed through the Crimea, who, accompanying the Byzantine princess, brought Christianity to Kievan Rus. It was here that the myth of Moscow as the Third Rome was born, which went back to the Second Rome that existed several centuries earlier - Constantinople, which the tsarist troops almost managed to conquer, reaching its very suburbs. For more than two centuries, the power of the Russian Empire reached here. And in this sense, nothing has changed since then.

"From Now to Eternity"

Crimea and the steppes lying behind it at the end of the 18th century turned for Europeans into a symbol of the fact that the Russian Empire, so far away for them, could become a real power on the continent. The “legitimate” pretext for this was the “unification of the lands of the Golden Horde”, which included the Khanate of the Crimean Tatars. Thus, the kings followed the tradition of the Mongols, whose dominion they themselves overthrew 300 years earlier.

In 1783, Prince Grigory Potemkin, on behalf of his mistress Catherine II, received the peninsula as the property "from now on and forever and ever." For this, contemporaries have already awarded the queen the title "Great". Because she built a springboard to the south, which Peter the Great, having made his way to the mouth of the Don, could only dream of. Not without reason Potemkin gave the new capital of the Crimea the appropriate name: Sevastopol - the city of greatness.

Thanks to its breakthrough to the isthmus of the Sea of ​​Azov, Russia has become a strong player in the Mediterranean space. From here, her ships departed, intended to reinforce her claims to patronage over Orthodox Christians living in the Ottoman Empire. The great goal of conquering Constantinople and thus taking control of the Turkish straits leading to the Mediterranean Sea was never achieved due to the superiority of the British troops. One of the clashes between the Russians and the British resulted in a war called the Crimean War.

In 1853, British, French, Piedmontese and Ottoman troops landed on the peninsula. Their campaign is considered the first in history, during which military equipment was involved, in particular, armored ships, cannons and machine guns. Some historians estimate the number of victims of this war at 750,000 people, which exceeds the number of victims of the American Civil War. After a year-long siege, Sevastopol, which had previously been turned into a real sea fortress, fell in September 1855.

“Compared to Sevastopol, the ruined Pompeii were in good condition,” Mark Twain wrote ten years later in his diary. The siege, which resulted in the reforms of Alexander II, is reminiscent of numerous monuments, but first of all, the panorama of the Malenkovsky bastion, the battle for which went on to the last. The Crimean War marked the beginning of a fundamental reorganization of the Russian Empire. In particular, serfdom was abolished in the country.

Crimean Tatars had to pay

First of all, the Crimean Tatars had to pay for the defeat of Russia in the war. Back in the time of Catherine and her heirs, they, the allies of the Sultan, were expelled to uninhabited remote regions. After the war, the Russian authorities began to act against perceived or real supporters of the Ottomans with particular cruelty. Many Crimean Tatars were expelled from their homes or forced to flee.

The Soviet authorities were also suspicious of Muslims, believing that they were accomplices of foreign invaders. Thus, the Crimean People's Republic, founded in November 1917 by the Tatars, lasted only two months and was destroyed by the Red Army in January 1918. In 1920, the White Guard General Pyotr Wrangel set up his headquarters in the Crimea. And after the victory of Soviet power in the Civil War, the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was formed on the peninsula. The Kremlin rulers did not want to give the peninsula, which is territorially remote from Russia, to Ukraine.

If before World War II Sevastopol and Crimea were synonymous with selflessness, then after it the “hero city” became a symbol of the victory of the USSR. While the forces of the German Wehrmacht in the autumn of 1941 almost came close to Moscow, in the south of the Red Army, for some time, they managed to throw back enemy units. The second offensive campaign of the Germans coincided with the duel between Hitler and Stalin, which ended in the Battle of Stalingrad.

With weapons in hand, the Stalinist governor and High Commissioner, Lev Mekhlis, drove his soldiers to the defensive orders of the Germans. “Sevastopol is not just a city. This is the glory of Russia, the pride of the Soviet Union... Sevastopol will not give up,” said the writer Ilya Erenburg. But four weeks later, the fortress fell, Hitler awarded the commander of the German forces, Erich Manstein, the rank of Field Marshal, and the Third Reich reached the pinnacle of its power. The dictator dreamed of populating the places where the Goths lived in antiquity with South Tyroleans. For some time, the Crimea was called the Goth District (Gotengau).

Old Cossack oath

Less than two years later, Hitler declared the holding of Sevastopol a strategic necessity and sacrificed an entire army for this. And 126 Red Army soldiers earned the title of "Hero of the Soviet Union" in the battle for Sevastopol.

Stalin's revenge was terrible. Since part of the Crimean Tatars collaborated with the Nazis during the years of occupation, all the people were deported from the territory of the peninsula. Up to 400 thousand people were forced to leave these places. Over the next 18 months, half of them died. The head of the NKVD, Lavrenty Beria, demanded awards for his employees for "merits in the war against traitors to the Motherland." 413 of them were indeed awarded orders and medals.

So Crimea became Russian territory. The fact that the peninsula was once given to Ukraine was the result of a grand gesture of historical significance. On January 17, 1954, the 300th anniversary of the Pereyaslav Rada was celebrated, when the Cossack chieftains took the oath of allegiance to the Russian Tsar Alexei I. In Russia, this event is considered the final and irrevocable obedience and “the decisive stage in the ‘reunification’ of Ukraine with Russia,” as the historian Andreas wrote about it. Kappeler (Andreas Kappeler). The Ukrainian Cossacks considered this step only as the conclusion of a temporary agreement on mutual support.

Nikita Khrushchev, who came to power in the Soviet Union after Stalin, leaned towards the Russian interpretation of the Cossack oath, but gave the Ukrainian SSR a kind of “wedding gift” by annexing the Crimean ASSR to it. But only 20 years have passed, and the muse of history, Clio, adopted the Ukrainian version, and Crimea left Russia.

Now Vladimir Putin is apparently trying to prove to the world that he, like an archaeologist, can change history.

The materials of InoSMI contain only assessments of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the editors of InoSMI.