Russia's takeover of Crimea extends from the flags over government buildings to passports to the labels on wine bottles. Despite the international criticism, many Crimeans are happy to rejoin Moscow.

Russian President Vladimir Putin cloaks himself as the bearer of all sorts of mythic, historical legacies that stretch back beyond the Soviet era.

During Soviet times, Tatars, an ethnic Turkic group who had lived in Crimea since the 13th century, were forcibly expelled by Josef Stalin. They mainly settled in exile in Turkey and Uzbekistan.

He carried a flag, the hammer and sickle of the Soviet era, and a photograph, of Stalin.

Crimea was never Russian Crimea is no bargaining chip in a geopolitical game; it is my homeland and I will not give it up, just like my Crimean Tatar ancestors did not.

Crimea was home to Turkic-speaking Tatars when the Russian empire first annexed it in the 18th century. It briefly regained independence two centuries later before being swallowed by the Soviet Union.

In 1954, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred control over Crimea to Kyiv from Moscow, an unremarkable move at the time, since both Ukraine and Russia were within the same country.

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Ukraine claims it has raised its national flag in Crimea after conducting a "special operation" in the Russian-occupied territory overnight. The raid was carried out by Ukrainian navy and military ...

2 The monument to the Red Army photographed in 1959. The memorial complex was installed in 1954, a decade after the Soviet military entered Bulgaria during World War II. The Balkan country’s ...

Russia's takeover of Crimea extends from the flags over government buildings to passports to the labels on wine bottles. Despite the international criticism, many Crimeans are happy to rejoin Moscow.