The Russian Interventions in South Ossetia and Crimea Compared: Military Performance, Legitimacy and
The Russian Intervention in Crimea
Theoretical Aspects of the Russian Interventio...
Russian Foreign Policy towards the Former...
The Russian Intervention in South Ossetia
The Russian Intervention in Crimea
Comparing and Contrasting the Two...
Conclusion: Prospects for the Future
The port of Sevastopol was founded by Prince Grigory Potemkin in 1783 when Crimea was annexed by the Russian empire. During the 1850s, the peninsula became a battlefield between Russian imperial forces and the invading armies of Great Britain and France. Nevertheless, Crimea remained part of the tsarist empire until 1917. After the establishment of the Soviet Union, the peninsula joined the Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) of Russia. The Crimean oblast was transferred to the SSR of Ukraine, on 19 February 1954, by the decision of the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev.
Crimea was upgraded to an autonomous republic within Ukraine on 12 February 1991, following a local referendum which changed the status of the peninsula. It should be noted that only 54 per cent of Crimean voters voted yes in the all-Ukraine referendum on independence in December 1991, while the national average was 92 per cent.35 In May 1992, the Crimean parliament voted for independence from Ukraine.
That was hardly surprising given that the majority of the local population was ethnic Russian. According to the 1989 Soviet population census, 65 per cent identified as Russian, 27 per cent as Ukrainian, and about 2 per cent Crimean Tatars.36 The signing of the Act on the Division of Power between Authorities of Ukraine and Republic of Crimea temporarily de-escalated tensions.
The status of Crimea is closely connected to the Black Sea fleet. Russian–Ukrainian negotiations for division of the fleet lasted from 1992 to 1997. Finally, the two sides signed the Partition Treaty. Russia received 81.7 per cent of the fleet's vessels and the rest went to Ukraine. The deal allowed the Russian navy to stay in Sevastopol until 2017. In 2010, President Yanukovych extended the lease to 2042, a decision not well received by many Ukrainian leaders. In late July 2013, for example, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, leader of the party Fatherland and later prime minister, called the agreement ‘anti-constitutional, anti-state, and anti-Ukrainian’ and called for the Russian fleet to leave Crimea.37
The Ukrainian crisis began when President Yanukovych announced on 21 November 2013 that Kiev would end negotiations for an association agreement with the European Union and seek closer relations with the Russian Federation. By late November 2013, thousands of Ukrainians joined the protests against the government. In mid December, the Russian government announced its plans to buy US$15 billion worth of Ukrainian bonds and reduce the price of gas for Ukraine.38The situation continued to deteriorate as the police attempted to crush the opposition protestors and street clashes erupted in Kiev and other cities.
On 21 February 2014, Yanukovych agreed to form a unity government with opposition leaders and hold early elections. More importantly, the Ukrainian president said he would relinquish some of his constitutional powers. The deal was brokered by the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland who had largely supported opposition demands for political change. Nevertheless, Yanukovych was forced to leave the capital and then the parliament voted to remove him from office. The Ukrainian opposition formed an interim government on 27 February 2014, but failed to invite politicians from Crimea and the Russian-speaking provinces of eastern Ukraine. Moreover, the parliament attempted – unsuccessfully – to pass a bill that would repeal the status of Russian as an official language for public administration on a par with Ukrainian.39
On 27 February 2014, pro-Russian gunmen seized the Crimean parliament. The next day they took over the Simferopol airport. Checkpoints were established at Armyansk and Chongar, on the border between Crimea and mainland Ukraine. Troops without insignia – the infamous ‘little green men’ – seized television stations and government buildings. Simultaneously, military exercises were conducted in western Russia. On 1 March 2014, Putin asked the Federation Council, the upper house of Russia's parliament, to grant him the power to send troops to Ukraine for the protection of ethnic Russians.
In the meantime, Russian troops had completed the seizure of the peninsula without firing a single shot. Yet Russia's defence minister Sergey Shoigu claimed that there are ‘absolutely no’ Russian troops in Crimea and dismissed suggestions to the contrary as ‘complete nonsense’.40 On 6 March 2014, the Crimean parliament voted to secede from Ukraine and apply to join the Russian Federation. The decision was confirmed by a referendum on 16 March 2014, when 95 per cent of those who participated voted for joining Russia.41 On 21 March 2014, Russia officially annexed Crimea.
Military Performance
The non-violent takeover of Crimea by the Russian forces was an unprecedented event in the history of post-war Europe. The Ukrainian interim government was overtaken by the speed of events. Russian troops demonstrated professionalism and maintained discipline throughout the covert operation to control the peninsula. They encircled Ukrainian army bases in the first two weeks of the crisis, but did not open fire despite moments of tension between the two sides.
Instead, they used persuasion and intimidation. Russian forces managed to isolate local Ukrainian troops from their command and control headquarters in Kiev by cutting telephone cables, jamming communications and cyber warfare.42 Local Ukrainian forces were ordered not to resist.43 As a result, the surrender of the Ukrainian forces and the takeover of their facilities were almost bloodless.
During the crisis, the Kremlin insisted that the unidentified gunmen were not Russian soldiers but local self-defence volunteers. Igor Sutyagin, a specialist on Russian military affairs at the Royal United Services Institute, has speculated that the 3rd Spetsnaz brigade, from the Samara oblast, was involved.44 While some troops from the Black Sea fleet did participate in the operation (for example the 431st naval reconnaissance brigade and the 810th marines' infantry brigade), most Russian soldiers were airlifted from the North Caucasus military district and their vehicles were shipped across the Kerch Strait in the Azov Sea.45 It is possible that there were also units from the Russian rapid reaction forces from around Moscow.46 Finally, contractors from Russian private security firms possibly were involved in the takeover of government buildings in Crimea.47
While most of the operation was conducted by land forces, other branches contributed to its success. The role of the Russian navy was largely pre-emptive: a ship blocked the entrance of the military harbour at Sevastopol to prevent Ukrainian ships from exiting or entering. Yet the Ukrainian navy was in disarray. On 1 March 2014, Rear Admiral Denys Berezovsky became head of the Ukrainian navy but he defected next day to the new pro-Russian authorities in Crimea. The Russian air force had a minor role in the operation to control Crimea; Mi-8 and Mi-26 helicopters, and Il-76 and An-72 planes were used to transport troops and equipment.48
The unusually impressive performance of the Russian troops forced Putin to acknowledge the presence of Russian servicemen in Crimea. In April 2014, he stated that… the events in Crimea were a serious test that demonstrated the new capabilities of our armed forces in terms of quality and the high morale spirit of the personnel. I thank the commanders and servicemen of the Black Sea fleet and other units deployed in Crimea for their restraint and personal courage for precise and professional actions.49
In Crimea, Russian soldiers wore new uniforms (for example ballistic goggles, kneepads, bulletproof jackets, new helmets) and carried new firearms. In addition, they had push-to-talk encrypted radios, navigation equipment, and thermal and night-vision sights for firearms. Although the new army kit did not influence the outcome, it indicated that a serious modernization effort had taken place since the 2008 Russian–Georgian war.50
Basis of Legitimacy
In December 1994, together with the United Kingdom and United States, Russia became a signatory to the Budapest Memorandum guaranteeing ‘the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine’.51 In return, Kiev agreed to surrender all its nuclear warheads to Moscow. Russia's legal obligations towards Ukraine and its status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council forced the Kremlin to launch a covert operation with Special Forces and a local pro-Russian militia in Crimea.
But Moscow still had to justify the operation. Vitaly Churkin, the Russian ambassador to the UN, told the Security Council that the ousted Ukrainian president had written to President Putin on 1 March 2014 to send troops to protect civilians; in fact, the Russian side presented a letter allegedly written by Yanukovych requesting military help.52 Yet Moscow insisted that the Russian troops operating in Crimea were coming from the Black Sea fleet only and not from Russia. According to the 1997 Russian–Ukrainian treaty, Russia was allowed to have up to 25,000 troops, 24 artillery systems with a calibre smaller than 100 mm, 132 armoured vehicles, and 22 military planes.53
The 1997 bilateral agreement recognized that Russian troops could operate ‘beyond their deployment sites' only after ‘coordination with the competent agencies of Ukraine’.54
In a press conference on 4 March 2014, Vladimir Putin for the first time explained the basis of legitimacy for the intervention in Crimea. He mentioned two factors that justified the Russian actions:
The overthrow of Yanukovych constituted an ‘anti-constitutional takeover, an armed seizure of power’, despite his willingness to hand over power as demanded by the Ukrainian opposition. The rise of ‘reactionary, nationalist and anti-Semitic forces' threatened the lives of Russian-speakers and others, and undermined democracy in the country. Russia intervened because there was a direct appeal from the legitimate president to ‘protect the lives, freedom, and health of the citizens of Ukraine’.
Owing to the situation in Kiev, the Kremlin had to take pre-emptive measures in Crimea. Local Russian forces decided to ‘enhance the defence of their military facilities, because they were constantly receiving threats and [they] were aware of the armed nationalists moving in’.55
President Putin has also referred to the example of Kosovo as an analogy for the separation of Crimea from Ukraine. During his Duma and Federation Council address on 18 March 2014, the Russian leader argued that ‘for some reason, things that Kosovo Albanians were permitted to do, Russians, Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars in Crimea are not allowed. Again, one wonders why. We keep hearing from the United States and Western Europe that Kosovo is some special case. What makes it so special in the eyes of our colleagues?’56 Like the West did in Kosovo, the Kremlin has used the principle of self-determination to justify its intervention in Crimea.
Besides, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov offered a normative argument when he compared the peninsula to territories that Western powers rushed to protect in the past; in his words, Crimea ‘means immeasurably more than the Comoros for France or the Falklands for Britain’.57 His choice of examples implied that Moscow wanted to avoid accusations of imperialism, while stressing that Western powers have a history of intervening in distant regions.
Domestically, the Kremlin used Russian nationalism as a basis of legitimacy for the takeover of Crimea. During celebrations in Red Square for the annexation of the peninsula, Putin stated that ‘after a long, hard, and exhausting voyage, Crimea and Sevastopol are returning to their harbour, to their native shores, to their home port, to Russia!’58 In other words, Crimea and Sevastopol were presented as the cradle of the Russian nation ‘taken away’. Annexation corrected a historic injustice.
Motivational Goals
It is not clear yet whether Moscow was prepared for intervention or seized the opportunity to occupy the peninsula. Obviously, there must have been some plans for such a scenario, shown by the mobilization of pro-Kremlin citizens and rapid formation of a local militia. In any case, the Russian intervention in Crimea was caused by a number of motivational goals.
First, the Kremlin may have been worried that the overthrow of Yanukovych set the stage for a similar development in Russia. Protests against Putin after the May 2012 presidential election proved that the liberal opposition is still relatively strong. Indeed, Russia today is a very different country from that which first elected Putin 14 years ago. The enrichment of certain groups (e.g. civil servants, small and medium entrepreneurs) may well be credited to Putin, but the middle class also is seeking political emancipation. The massive use of the Internet allows the liberal opposition to mobilize quickly Russian citizens. Military action against Kiev can be viewed as a demonstration of power to solidify support for the Kremlin domestically and could warn the liberal opposition that mass protests against the Russian leadership would not be tolerated.
Second, Western support for the Ukrainian opposition was interpreted as part of a plan to force reorientation of the country's foreign and security policy away from Moscow. The United States and its European allies were blamed for the ‘fascist coup’ that overthrew Ukraine's legitimate leader. From Putin's point of view, Western criticism of the Russian intervention in Crimea is hypocritical and unjust. Not only has the United States itself intervened militarily in many parts of the world unilaterally, but it has coerced other countries to accept its actions. During the press conference of 4 March, Putin said:… we are often told our actions are illegitimate, but when I ask, ‘do you think everything you do is legitimate?’ they say ‘yes'.
Then, I have to recall the actions of the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, where they either acted without any UN sanctions or completely distorted the content of such resolutions, as was the case of Libya … our partners, especially the United States, always clearly formulate their own geopolitical and state interests and follow them with persistence. Then, using the principle ‘you are either with us or against us' they draw the whole world in. And those who do not join in get ‘beaten’ until they do.59
His words revealed deep frustration with American foreign policy in the post-Cold War period. Therefore, Russian military actions in Ukraine are meant to send a message: Moscow is back in the region and American geopolitical primacy will not go unchallenged from now on.
But the United States is not the only one to blame for the developments in Ukraine. Although the Kremlin did not initially object to closer relations between Kiev and Brussels, the establishment of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) in 2011 put the Kremlin on a collision course with the European Union as well. The EEU aims at fostering integration and strengthening economic relations among former Soviet republics. Currently, the organization consists of three member states: Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. It plans to integrate more former Soviet republics. Thus Moscow now perceives the European Union as a geopolitical competitor in the region. Launching of the Eastern Partnership by Brussels in 2009 was met with scepticism by Moscow, which viewed the initiative as the EU's covert effort to establish a sphere of influence in the Black Sea.60 The role of European governments in the Ukrainian crisis only reinforced Russian fears that loss of Ukraine was imminent.61
Finally, the military significance of Crimea is too great for Moscow to ignore. Annexation makes the contiguous Azov Sea a Russian lake, and extends Russia's coastline hundreds of miles. The peninsula is located at the centre of the Black Sea region; Sevastopol is 243 miles (391 km) away from the port of Constanta on the Romanian Black Sea coast, 296 (476 km) miles from Bulgarian port of Varna, and 339 miles (546 km) from Istanbul. Control of Crimea allows Moscow to monitor military developments in the Black Sea at a time when American facilities have been established at Bulgaria's Bezmer air base and Romania's Mikhail Kogalniceanu air base. Although the Russian Black Sea fleet only consists of 40 vessels, most dating from the 1970s, it is scheduled to be upgraded with new submarines and frigates.62
