Why does Russia really want Crimea to be its territory?

JAKARTA – The war that happened between Russia and Ukraine It has been going on for almost a year, starting last February. Seeing this phenomenon, obviously many people wonder why Russia until the heart attacks its closest neighbors.

In reality, these two countries were both fractions of the Soviet Union that collapsed in 1991. This war is not the first Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Previously, the two countries had been involved in a dispute over the territory of Crimea.

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MPI’s research and development team looked at several sources, including magazines, to find out why the Crimean conflict occurred. One of the data was obtained from the Electronic Journal (eJournal) of International Relations (2019) entitled “Russia’s Annexation of Crimea in 2014”, written by Irvand Sahir.

The newspaper noted that the Crimea region, which is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, is a semi-autonomous Ukraine and has strong political ties to the country. On the other hand, Crimea is very close to Russia culturally as well.

This fact was also confirmed by Wasis Susetio, et al, in the journal “Russian-Ukrainian War: Searching for a New World Balance”. It was alleged that in 2014, Russian military forces annexed Crimea. However, the people of Crimea prefer to join the Russian Federation through a referendum, because they are closer culturally. Most Crimeans speak Russian in everyday life.

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Furthermore, the conflict in Crimea was actually a consequence of the Ukrainian upheaval of 2013, where its president at the time, Victor Yanukovych, was reluctant to sign an economic cooperation pact with the European Union called DCFTA (Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement) and instead collaborated with Russia. Indeed, the Ukrainian people themselves want their government to cooperate with the European Union and even tend to want to become a member. However, it was banned from Moscow.

The people staged massive demonstrations and protests, which led to upheaval in the Crimea. Citizens of Crimea, especially those from ethnic Russians, feel that their safety is threatened and their guarantee of safety is lost.

Seeing this, on 11 March 2014 the Crimean parliament, which supported the Russian government, declared the independence of Crimea from Ukraine. As many as 96% of Crimeans wanted to join Russia and only 30.4% wanted to stay in Kiev.