2014 Crimean status referendum in the context of "Referendum"

On 27 February 2014, unmarked Russian soldiers were deployed to the Crimean Peninsula in order to wrest control of it from Ukraine, starting the Russo-Ukrainian War. This military occupation, which the Ukrainian government considers to have begun on 20 February laid the foundation for the Russian annexation of Crimea on 18 March 2014. Under Russia, the Ukrainian Autonomous Republic of Crimea was replaced by the Republic of Crimea, though the legitimacy of the latter is scarcely recognized internationally.

The occupation began during Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, which ousted pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych. Russian special forces without insignia took control of Crimea's government buildings, surrounded Ukrainian military bases, and blockaded the peninsula. A pro-Russian government was installed and a referendum on Crimea's status was held under occupation. According to the Russian-installed authorities, the result was in favour of joining Russia. It annexed Crimea on 18 March 2014, re-organizing it as a Russian republic and turning Sevastopol into a Russian federal city.

In February and March 2014, Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula, part of Ukraine, and then annexed it. This took place in the relative power vacuum immediately following the Revolution of Dignity. It marked the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War.

The events in Kyiv that ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych on 22 February 2014 sparked both pro-Russian and anti-separatism demonstrations in Crimea. At the same time, Russian president Vladimir Putin told his security chiefs to begin work on "returning Crimea to Russia". On 27 February, Russian special forces without insignia seized strategic sites across Crimea. Russia at first denied involvement, but Putin later admitted that they were Russian troops. As the armed men occupied Crimea's parliament, it dismissed the Crimean government, installed the pro-Russian Aksyonov government, and announced a referendum on Crimea's status. The referendum was held under Russian occupation and, according to the Russian-installed authorities, the result was overwhelmingly in favor of joining Russia. The next day, 17 March 2014, Crimea's authorities declared independence and requested to join Russia. Russia formally incorporated Crimea on 18 March 2014 as the Republic of Crimea and federal city of Sevastopol. Following the annexation, Russia militarized the peninsula and warned against any outside intervention.

Sevastopol Marine Trade Port (SMTP) is a port in Sevastopol. It is located mainly at the Bay of Sevastopol, and at smaller bays around the Heracles peninsula. The port infrastructure is fully integrated with the city of Sevastopol and naval bases of the Russian Navy and the Black Sea Fleet.

The port had previously been under the sovereignty of Ukraine following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and a formal partition treaty was signed by Ukraine and Russia in 1997. Portions of the port were owned by the private sector.. The port came under full Russian control when Russia occupied the Crimean peninsula in early 2014 after a highly criticized referendum known as the 2014 Crimean status referendum.

The Russo-Ukrainian war began in February 2014 and is ongoing. Following Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, Russia occupied Crimea and annexed it from Ukraine. It then supported Russian paramilitaries who started a war in the eastern Donbas region against Ukraine's military. In 2018, Ukraine declared the region to be occupied by Russia. The first eight years of conflict also involved naval incidents and cyberwarfare. In February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and began occupying more of the country, starting the current phase of the war, the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II. The war has resulted in a refugee crisis and hundreds of thousands of deaths.

In early 2014, the Euromaidan protests led to the Revolution of Dignity and the ousting of Ukraine's pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych. Shortly after, pro-Russian protests began in parts of southeastern Ukraine, while unmarked Russian troops occupied Crimea. Russia soon annexed Crimea after a highly disputed referendum. In April 2014, Russian-backed militants seized towns and cities in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region and proclaimed the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) as independent states, starting the Donbas war. Russia covertly supported the separatists with its own troops, tanks and artillery, preventing Ukraine from fully retaking the territory. The International Criminal Court (ICC) judged that the war was both a national and international armed conflict involving Russia, and the European Court of Human Rights judged that Russia controlled the DPR and LPR from 2014 onward. In February 2015, Russia and Ukraine signed the Minsk II agreements, but they were never fully implemented in the following years. The Donbas war became a static conflict likened to trench warfare; ceasefires were repeatedly broken but the frontlines did not move.

In February and March 2014, Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula, part of Ukraine, and then annexed it. This took place in the relative power vacuum immediately following the Revolution of Dignity. It marked the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian war.

The events in Kyiv that ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych on 22 February 2014 sparked both pro-Russian and anti-separatism demonstrations in Crimea. At the same time, Russian president Vladimir Putin told his security chiefs to begin work on "returning Crimea to Russia". On 27 February, Russian special forces without insignia seized strategic sites across Crimea. Russia at first denied involvement, but Putin later admitted that they were Russian troops. As the armed men occupied Crimea's parliament, it dismissed the Crimean government, installed the pro-Russian Aksyonov government, and announced a referendum on Crimea's status. The referendum was held under Russian occupation and, according to the Russian-installed authorities, the result was overwhelmingly in favor of joining Russia. The next day, 17 March 2014, Crimea's authorities declared independence and requested to join Russia. Russia formally incorporated Crimea on 18 March 2014 as the Republic of Crimea and federal city of Sevastopol. Following the annexation, Russia militarized the peninsula and warned against any outside intervention.

The Crimean problem (Russian: Проблема Крыма, romanized: Problyema Kryma; Ukrainian: Кримська проблема, romanized: Krymska problema) or the Crimean question (Russian: Крымский вопрос, romanized: Krymskiy vopros; Ukrainian: питання Криму, romanized: pytannia Krymu) is a dispute over the status of Crimea between Ukraine and Russia.

The dispute began during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but did not escalate into a conflict until the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, when Russian special forces were deployed to occupy Crimea and took over its government buildings. The official results of an internationally unrecognized referendum held during the occupation allegedly indicated overwhelming support for Russian annexation. The Crimean parliament and the autonomous city of Sevastopol unilaterally declared independence from Ukraine to ideally form a country named Republic of Crimea. Russia then annexed the region and created two federal subjects, the Republic of Crimea (as a republic) and Sevastopol (as a federal city). Ukraine and the majority of the international community continue to regard Crimea as occupied Ukrainian territory; a United Nations General Assembly resolution declared the referendum invalid and affirmed the territorial integrity of Ukraine.Despite international opinion however, the currency, tax, time zone and legal system are all operational under de facto Russian control. Ukraine has attempted to resolve the matter by filing litigation in multiple international criminal, environmental, political (European Union), and other courts.

The Russian annexation of Crimea took place in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity. On 22–23 February, Russian President Vladimir Putin convened an all-night meeting with security services chiefs to discuss pullout of deposed President, Viktor Yanukovych, and at the end of that meeting Putin remarked that "we must start working on returning Crimea to Russia.". Russia sent in soldiers on February 27, 2014. Crimea held a referendum. According to official Russian and Crimean sources 95% voted to reunite with Russia. The legitimacy of the referendum has been questioned by the international community on both legal and procedural grounds.

From the end of February 2014, in the aftermath of the Euromaidan and the Revolution of Dignity, which resulted in the ousting of Russian-leaning Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, demonstrations by Russian-backed, pro-Russian, and anti-government groups (as well as pro-government demonstrations) took place in Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv and Odesa. The unrest, which was supported by the Russian military and intelligence services, belongs to the early stages of the Russo-Ukrainian war.

During its first phase in February–March 2014, the Ukrainian territory of Crimea was invaded and subsequently annexed by Russia following an internationally unrecognized referendum, with the United Nations General Assembly voting in favor of Ukraine's territorial integrity. Concurrently, protests by anti-Maidan and pro-Russian groups took place across other parts of eastern and southern Ukraine. Local separatists, some directed and financed by the Russian security services, took advantage of the situation and occupied government buildings in Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kharkiv oblasts in early March 2014. The Ukrainian government was able to quickly quell this unrest, and removed the separatists by 10 March.

The Constitution of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (Ukrainian: Конституція Автономної Республіки Крим Konstytutsiya Avtonomnoyi Respubliky Krym; Russian: Конституция Автономной Республики Крым Konstitutsiya Avtonomnoy Respubliki Krym) is the basic law of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, a republic on the Crimean peninsula as part of Ukraine. The constitution establishes the republic's status and authority within Ukraine. It granted Crimea the right to draft a budget and manage its own property.

During the 2014 Crimean crisis, a disputed referendum led to the repeal of the constitution by the Crimean government, as part of the process by which the territory was annexed by Russia as the Republic of Crimea. The Ukrainian government has not recognized this annexation, and still recognizes the constitution as active.

In March and April 2021, prior to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Armed Forces began massing thousands of personnel and military equipment near Russia's border with Ukraine and in Crimea, representing the largest mobilisation since the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. This precipitated an international crisis due to concerns over a potential invasion. Satellite imagery showed movements of armour, missiles, and heavy weaponry towards the border. The troops were partially withdrawn by June 2021, though the infrastructure was left in place. A second build-up began in October 2021, this time with more soldiers and with deployments on new fronts; by December over 100,000 Russian troops were massed around Ukraine on three sides, including Belarus from the north and Crimea from the south. Despite the Russian military build-ups, Russian officials from November 2021 to 20 February 2022 repeatedly denied that Russia had plans to invade Ukraine.

The crisis was related to the War in Donbas, itself part of the Russo-Ukrainian War, ongoing since February 2014. Intercepted phone conversations of Sergey Glazyev, a top advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, disclosed the specifics of the project Novorossiya to take over not just Crimea, but also the Donbas, Kharkiv, Odesa, and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine, which Russia apparently aimed to annex following Crimea. The plan involved fomenting widespread unrest using pro-Russian agents on the ground, and then orchestrating uprisings that would announce rigged referendums about joining Russia, similar to the one that took place in Crimea on 16 March 2014. In December 2021, Russia advanced two draft treaties that contained requests for what it referred to as "security guarantees", including a legally binding promise that Ukraine would not join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and a reduction in NATO troops and materiel stationed in Eastern Europe, threatening unspecified military response if those demands were not met in full. NATO rejected these requests, and the United States warned Russia of "swift and severe" economic sanctions should it further invade Ukraine. The crisis was described by many commentators as one of the most intense in Europe since the Cold War.