Crimea is host to Russian naval bases and a big Russian population, and the bases were leased from Ukraine after their transfer to the Ukrainian SSR and the dissolution of the USSR. When the NATO government was established in Kiev, Russian forces were already in Crimea and clearly weren't going to hand over Sevastopol to NATO.
Something that should be noted is that the the majority of Crimea's Army and Navy immediately defected to Russia. As an odd note, this also included 100% of the dolphins.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2014/jul/06/ukraine-combat-dolphins-russia-give-back
Russia has like 3 non-crimea ports that aren’t shuttered every winter
The history of Russia can be summed up in 2 sentences
We really need some warm water ports
and
We really need to make sure those psychopaths to the west can’t march right up to St. Petersburg
warm water ports is a meme by liberal IR guys, it certainly matters but i would be careful overstressing its importance personally.
I don't think it's possible to overstress how vital it is for a nation to have year round access to the sea. St. Petersburg could be blockaded easily with naval mines and missiles, while Archangel is ice bound for a significant part of the year. Vladivostok is several hundred million miles from anywhere that matters and directly across the pacific from US naval bases in Hawaii and San Francisco.
Like if you've got evidence to the contrary please by all means present it, but to the best of my knowledge year round access to the seas with high volume ports is right below energy independence and nuclear weapons on the list of vital strategic assets.
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