They Cheered Russian Rule. Now Some Have Buyer’s Remorse.
This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
SIMFEROPOL, Crimea—One morning in February 2014, the 2 million inhabitants of Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that was Ukraine’s premier seaside destination, woke to find a new set of flags flying in their streets. Overnight, Russian special forces had taken over checkpoints on the sliver of land that connects this territory to the Ukrainian mainland, and seized government buildings in the cities.
The move was neither unexpected nor much decried in Crimea, where a majority of the population are ethnic Russians. Thin straggles of pro-Ukrainian protesters were outnumbered by huge hordes cheering for Vladimir Putin. Less than a month later, a referendum, widely criticized by the international community, polled overwhelming support for joining the Russian Federation, and the annexation was complete.
[The strategy behind Russia’s takeover of Crimea]
At first, Sergey Akimov, a stout 39-year-old with the kind of,” and when Russian troops arrived to complete the takeover, Akimov’s Cossacks were among the crowds welcoming them in Simferopol’s Lenin Square.
