With almost daily news of Ukrainian advances in the war, it’s clear that Russia is on the back
foot. But despite all the gains Ukraine continues their make, as President Zelensky has stated,
the country will not stop until it retakes all occupied lands, Crimea included. However,
some military experts predict that if Ukraine were to retake Crimea,
it would signal the fall of Putin and his regime within a few years. But how could Ukraine retaking
Crimea tear Russia apart like that? Before we begin, we should be clear we
are not going to delve into the if, how, or when Ukrainian forces could retake Crimea. With so much
debate around that topic, this is best reserved for another time. For the sake of this video,
we will assume that Ukraine has successfully conquered Crimea and analyze the political
ramifications that would follow. With those formalities out of the way, let's first debunk
a few myths about why Crimea is important to Russia and then get into the real reason
why losing Crimea would destroy Putin’s regime. For those unfamiliar with the geography of Crimea,
it’s the portion of Ukraine that juts out the bottom of the country in the north of the
Black Sea. While it may look like an island, it’s connected to Ukraine by a three-mile strip of land
known as the Isthmus of Perekop. The remaining "land borders," if you could call them that,
are very shallow lagoons known as Sivash. These muddy marshlands can act like a footbridge
between Crimea and Ukraine since, at low tide, people can walk across in most areas. In fact,
it is what both the Germans and Soviets did in World War Two when they attacked the peninsula.
This geography is important because even though it’s technically connected to Ukraine,
for all intents and purposes, Crimea is like a big island. The peninsula relies heavily upon
imported manufactured goods, fuel, and most other necessities. While there is a bustling
agricultural sector on the peninsula, this relies heavily on the North Crimean Canal.
The North Crimean Canal was a major public works project started by the Soviet Union in 1961 and
finished in 1975. This massive canal draws its water from the Dnipro river in the Kherson oblast
and sends it to Crimea. About two-thirds of the water is used for agriculture, with
the rest going between industry and public use. The canal is important because it demonstrates how
economically depressed the region is. Crimea was devastated during the Second World War,
and because Stalin deported most of the native Tatar population in 1944, the area was severely
depopulated. With so much destruction and few people to work, Crimea has been in economic
turmoil since the rule of Stalin. Since taking over Crimea in 2014,
the Russian government has been continually pumping out data praising the huge economic
growth in the region. According to Russian data, Crimea is the fastest-growing economic
region in Russia with almost all sectors posting nearly triple-digit growth. The construction
industry in Crimea has been the most impressive, which saw a 71% growth year over year by 2019.
But what is startling is that despite the enormous economic growth, Crimea is among the three poorest
oblasts in Russia by per capita income. How could that be with such growth across all industries?
First of all, most of the construction growth was because of the Kerch Bridge that Putin had his
cronies build to connect Crimea with mainland Russia. The other huge reason was the heavy
investment in railways, bridges, port facilities, and other infrastructure in Crimea's major port,
Sevastopol. With Sevastopol being the prime Russian military base in the region, the rest
of the country has seen little to no investment. Because of the poor state of the Crimean economy,
Putin has pumped in around 13 billion dollars in direct financial aid to shore
up Crimean accounts. Some economic analysts argue that this, combined with investments
in the Kerch bridge and Sevastopol, helped cause the Russian economy to retract for a
few years after the annexation of Crimea. Despite the economic slump in most of the
peninsula, the one industry in Crimea that is doing well is its tourism industry. With its
temperate climates, beautiful scenery, and vast coastlines, Crimea has turned into the equivalent
of Florida for Russia, with many wealthy retirees and those seeking better weather relocating to
the region. But Russian snowbirds aren't the only people going to Crimea; it’s also one of
Russia's most popular vacation spots. In 2019, a record 7.2 million tourists visited Crimea,
and these numbers make up about 25% of the overall number of tourists to Russia each year.
Another reason why Crimea might be important is because of the Exclusive Economic Zones
that surround it. According to international law, each country is entitled to a 200-nautical mile
area extending from their country's shores that gives all mineral, fishing, and other economic
rights to that country. Known as EEZs, these are powerful pieces of real estate that give
a country claims over things like oil and natural gas, and in the Black Sea, there is a lot of it.
The Black Sea has several trillion cubic meters of natural gas and hundreds of millions
of barrels of oil that remain untapped. Because the area was an economic backwater for the USSR,
no serious attempt was made to invest in offshore drilling. Once Ukraine became independent, western
companies were weary of investing money into Ukrainian projects due to corruption and ownership
disputes. With the 2014 war in the Donbas, any hope of foreign investment fell to the wayside.
We have told you all of this because we want to make it clear that Putin’s interest in
Crimea isn’t an economic one. Losing Crimea would not be like losing a huge economic
hub. Being isolated and underdeveloped, the area is actually a drain on Russian finances.
Though losing Crimea would be a huge hit to Russia’s tourism industry, with the full-scale
invasion in February, Russia already destroyed its own tourism industry, with many people
worldwide unable to travel to or leave Russia. As for oil and natural gas deposits Russia would
lose, even though they are substantial, they actually pall in comparison to what
Russia produces in a year. Even if all the known natural gas deposits in the Black Sea were taken
out tomorrow, that would only be equivalent to what Russia could produce in a few years.
Losing these deposits does little to hurt the Russian economy. The fact that Russia denies
their use to Ukraine does much more to hurt the Ukrainian economy since these deposits make up
about 80% of Ukraine's known Black Sea reserves. So, if by losing Crimea, the Russian economy is
not hurt, the tourism industry is affected but already gone,
and oil and natural gas production remains practically unchanged, then how could losing
it hurt Putin? The short answer is prestige. Up until 1954, Crimea was actually part of
Russia. Since being absorbed into the Russian Empire by Catherine the Great in 1783,
Crimea was always part of Russia even after the USSR was created. This all changed in 1954 when
Nikita Khrushchev changed the administrative borders to have Crimea become part of Ukraine.
He did that because of the North Crimean Canal. Khrushchev thought that it would be easier if
the Ukrainian SSR was given control of Crimea. After all, it only made sense with the water
being drawn from Ukraine. But doing this in 1954 was highly controversial and remains so
to this day in Russia. This is because the people in Crimea are the least Ukrainian in the country.
Until 1783, Crimea was ruled by the Mongols or their descendants. Though the name of the
government might have changed a few times, by the 18th century, it was a part of the
Ottoman empire. Unlike Russia, which overthrew its Mongol leaders several hundred years before,
Crimea remained linked to the Middle East and Asia. This long period of several hundred years
of being isolated from Russia and Ukraine allowed the Tatar people to develop their own culture.
With a mixture of Turkish, Asian, and European influences, Tatars were unlike
any other Ukrainians. Those ethnic Russians who moved to Crimea over the centuries adopted this
mentality of being close to Russia since many did not identify with Ukraine. In fact, at the
time of the 2014 annexation and war in the Donbas, Crimea was the only oblast with a majority ethnic
Russian population. Data then showed that 60% of the population in Crimea were ethnic Russians,
while in the Donbas this figure was just 40%. Even though the sham referendums held in Ukraine
since 2014 are universally seen as illegitimate, several votes held since the break up of the
Soviet Union show that Crimeans are divided pretty evenly though slightly favor Russia overall.
In the immediate aftermath of the USSR falling, just 54% of the population voted for independence
from Russia, even though 91% of Ukraine as a whole wanted independence. Because of this
disparity and Russian military interests in Sevastopol, Crimea became the only oblast in
Ukraine to be awarded the status of an autonomous republic with its own constitution and government.
However, throughout the 1990s, Crimea started to get increasingly closer to Russia. As a result,
the Ukrainian parliament abolished the Crimean constitution and absolved the
office of the Crimean President. After this, Russia did next to nothing to continue trying
to build a separate partnership with Crimea. The failure of the Yeltsin
government to secure more direct diplomatic ties during this time remained a thorn in
Putin’s side until he annexed the region in 2014. Over the next twenty years, Crimea continued to
show favoritism towards Russia. The region always voted for pro-Russian Ukrainian presidents,
including an overwhelming majority for Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych was the
president who backed out of letting Ukraine join the EU and whose bloody crackdown on
protests started the Euromaidan Revolution that brought true democracy to Ukraine.
In the eyes of the Russian people, due to the hundreds of years of history of being together and
their continued interest in being closer to Russia since the USSR fell, they see Crimea as part of
Russia. The fact that Khrushchev made what seemed like a simple administrative change 70 years
ago meant everything when these administrative borders became codified international borders in
the 90s. Russians feel that the only thing making Crimea part of Ukraine is this arbitrary decision
and that it could not erase hundreds of years of history and culture between the two. According to
independent studies, seeing Putin bring Crimea back into Russian control was hugely popular,
with about 70% of the population supporting it. The Russian military also hugely supported the
move. Since the 18th century, Sevastopol has been a major naval base. Over time,
Sevastopol has grown from a naval base to hosting many airfields, depots, army bases,
and missile sites. Additionally, Sevastopol remains the only viable warm water port under
Russian control within its own borders. Though Russian authorities have tried to build up ports
like Novorossiysk or secured basing rights in occupied parts of Georgia, these ports can't
compare to the size and scale of Sevastopol. Not only does occupying Sevastopol provide the
military with a year-round warm water port, it also denies the use of it to NATO forces. Were
Crimea ever to fall and Ukraine join NATO, NATO warships would likely be based out of
there. Controlling Crimea means that this scenario never has a chance to materialize, and if it did,
it would be a huge strategic failure for Russia. Controlling Crimea is also a key source of pride
for the Russian military. The peninsula has been home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet for hundreds of
years. With generations upon generations of military members serving there, abandoning
it would be like a slap in the face to those who see Crimea as a sort of ancestral homeland of the
Russian navy and, to a lesser extent, the army. If Ukraine seized Crimea, Putin would be in
serious trouble. First of all, he would suffer a loss in the information space he could not recover
from. Russia's people overwhelmingly see Crimea as, historically and by law, a part of Russia,
and the Russian military universally believes this idea. Losing Crimea would
showcase how weak of a leader Putin really is because he could not protect a small,
easily defensible area the size of Massachusetts. It would make people wonder how he could defend
mainland Russia from an attack from the west. The loss would also make him easily comparable
to his predecessor Yeltsin. Seen as weak and unable to stand up for himself,
losing Crimea would be seen as returning to a dark part of Russian history where
it seemed that people were taking advantage of the country. This dissatisfaction ultimately won Putin
the office in the first place, so losing Crimea would be seen as going backward, not forwards.
Losing Crimea would also severely undermine any future military operations to force new
territories into Russian control. A loss of Crimea would entail huge losses of personnel
and equipment for Russia in the ensuing battle. Not only would these losses hugely
affect overall force readiness, but it would send a message to everyone else that if the
Russians can't hold on to Crimea, they can't hold on to any other territories.
Regions outside Ukraine under Russian occupation, like Chechnya, Ingushetia, North Ossetia,
Transnistria, and Abkhazia, could see an overthrow of Russian control in Crimea as their time to rise
while Russia is weak. Other regions in eastern and southern Russia, such as marginalized ethnic
minorities, could use this opportunity not to rise up in armed conflict but seek greater political
independence from the Russian Federation. A military loss in Crimea would almost certainly
mean increased domestic military and political conflict. Combined with the irreversible damage to
his prestige, Putin's regime would crumble under its own weight as Russian civilians, military
members, and repressed communities all universally detest Putin for one reason or another.
Now go check out How Russian Tactics To Take Over Ukraine Will Backfire,
or click this other video instead!