Russia says it is acting in Ukraine to protect the human rights of its citizens. But what justification does it have for sending troops into Crimea?
What is Russia’s claim to Crimea?
Its historical links with the peninsula go back to Catherine
the Great in the 18th Century, when Russia conquered southern Ukraine
and Crimea, taking them from the Ottoman Empire. In 1954, Crimea was
handed to Ukraine as a gift by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, who was
himself half-Ukrainian. Only 10 years earlier, Joseph Stalin had
deported Crimea’s entire Tatar population, some 300,000 people,
allegedly for co-operating with Hitler’s Germany.
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