#politics #crimea #ukraine

On X I'm seeing a trending tag "Crimea is Ukraine".  But according to the demographics it was never populated by more than 25% ethnic Ukrainians and it is currently populated by 70% ethnic Russians.

If you want to argue that the Russians stole Ukraine, you could make a far better argument that they stole it from the Tatars than that they stole it from the Ukrainians.  Up to about 1835 is was nearly 90% Tartars.  Now it is only 10% Tartar (a remarkable comeback from 0.2% that happened during the Ukrainian administration).  The Tartars were ethnically cleansed by Joseph Stalin in 1944.

You might then argue that Ukrainian administration respected the Tartars far more than the Soviets did. I agree. But this has no impact on what modern-day Russia is or would do, which is hardly comparible to Joseph Stalin's rule.

In any case, Crimea is unlikely to change hands at this point, and giving that it is mostly ethnic Russians speaking Russian I don't think it should.  "Crimea is Russia" is more accurate and more reasonable than "Crimea is Ukraine".