... Crimea had been transferred from Russia to the Ukraine as a gift to ... administrative map of the former Soviet Union might have suggested . Even ... political independence from Russia . Even more confused was the situation in ... The Atlas of States: Global Change 1900 2000 provides an informative and comprehensively illustrated survey of the independent states of the twentieth century. The period witnessed unprecedented political changes as globalisation and the destructive powers of contending ideologies led to the continual transformation of state patterns in extensive sections of the world. Political leaders sought to harness the forces of nationalism, communism, imperialism, fascism etc., in an attempt to redraw the world map and in the process political structures of considerable antiquity were overthrown and fragmented. This did not preclude the resurrection of states destroyed in earlier eras. Recent turmoil in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union has exposed historic peoples seeking to regain their o

... political claims or allows them to exist unchallenged . The presence of a majority in Crimea who define themselves ... administrative act ; the party elites never envisaged that the USSR would collapse . But with the break - up of ... On 24 February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, giving rise to the deadliest conflict on European soil since the Second World War. How could this happen in twenty-first-century Europe? Why did Putin decide to escalate Russia’s war against Ukraine, a war which began with Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014? In this timely book, Gwendolyn Sasse analyses the background to this war and examines the factors that led to Putin’s fateful decision. She retraces the history of Ukraine’s struggle for independence from Russia and shows how democratic developments in Ukraine had become a risk for Russia’s political system. She also shows that ambiguous Western policy towards Russia encouraged elites in the Kremlin to think that they had more room for action than they did. The r

Abstract. This article is part of a series of 5 articles dedicated to the establishment of the borders of the Ukrainian SSR (and its legal continuation under the Union Constitution of 5 December 1936 of the Ukrainian SSR) with the neighbouring Soviet republics – the RSFSR, the Belorussian SSR (BSSR) and the Moldavian ASSR (Moldavian Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic; since 1936 – the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic) and the latter's legal successor – the Moldavian SSR. The author points out that the issue of transferring Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR was primarily driven by economic considerations – the war-torn and ruined by the deportation of the indigenous population, waterless Crimea was "hung around the neck" (budget) of the Ukrainian SSR. The event was tacitly timed to coincide with the celebration of the 300th anniversary of Ukraine's "reunification" with Russia. The transfer of the territory was not subject to any expression of popular will (referendum), and the decision was made behind the scenes by the Presidiums of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the two "fraternal republics". The thesis of contemporary Russian propaganda that Crimea was "given to Ukraine by a drunken Khrushchev", who at the time was not yet a top figure in the Soviet leadership, is also questionable. In any case, the transfer of Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR had full legal force, which is being actively disputed by Russian politicians and scholars of the post-Soviet period. It was within the framework of Ukrainian statehood that the multinational peninsula received autonomous status (within the Russian Federation it is now part of the Southern Federal District). The consideration of the issue is brought to the 2010s, without touching on the events of the so-called "Russian Spring" of 2014, which began with the occupation of Crimea by the regular Russian army and its proxies – "polite people". Attention is paid not only to the legal but also to the political and economic aspects of the peninsula's being part of the Ukrainian SSR and independent Ukraine. Keywords: borders of the Ukrainian SSR; modern borders of Ukraine; national question in the internal policy of the USSR.