2014 Crimean Annexation

Pro-Russian demonstrators in Simferopol, Crimea, in 2014.

A U.S.-backed Color Revolution advocated for stronger ties with Europe and sought to join the European Union and perhaps even NATO. Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was pressured by Russia to delay signing a treaty that would lead to Ukraine joining the EU, which lead to widespread Euromaidan riots in a U.S.-backed color revolution with support from Ukrainian neo-Nazi paramilitary group that overturned the government. Yanukovych singed a pledge on February 21, 214 not to run for reelection to quell the street unrest with the German and French Ambassadors as witnesses. However, the following day U.S.-backed Nazi terrorist groups threatened his personal safety and he fled Kyiv for Russia. He was then impeached. Although Russia was constrained from responding while hosting the 2014 Winter Olympics, a week after the Olympics ended, Russia moved against the Western installed regime in Kyiv by taking actions in Russian-majority regions of Crimea and in the Donbas of eastern Ukraine.

Billboard advertising the March 16, 2014 Crimean referendum to apply for admission to the Russian Federation.

Five days after the ouster of Ukraine's democratically elected president in the Western-backed Maidan coup, Russian soldiers landed in Crimea. Because most of the people living in Crimea are ethnic Russians, there was a dispute whether Crimea belongs to Ukraine or to Russia. On March 11, 2014, Crimea declared its independence from Ukraine. The Crimean Peninsula—82% of whose households speak Russian, and only 2% mainly Ukrainian—held a plebiscite on March 16, 2014 on whether or not they should join Russia, or remain under the foreign-back Ukrainian regime. The Pro-Russia camp won with 95% of the vote. The UN General Assembly, led by the US, voted to ignore the referendum results on the grounds that it was contrary to Ukraine’s constitution. This same constitution had been set aside to oust President Yanukovych a month earlier.

Afghanistan, Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea, Syria and Venezuela recognize Crimea as a part of Russia. On March 27, the U.N. General Assembly passed a non-binding resolution (100 in favor, 11 against and 58 abstentions) declaring Crimea's referendum invalid. In response, the Western alliance imposed sanctions against Russian trade.</ref> In response, the United States and Europe have imposed sanctions against Russian trade.

Poll conducted in Crimea by USAID and a NED front group just prior to the US-backed Maidan coup.

An email sent from Hunter Biden to his business partner Devon Archer on April 13, 2014 contained information from a classified State Department memo one week before Joe Biden visited Ukraine to meet prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. The email predicted an escalation of Russia’s “destabilization campaign, which could lead to a full scale takeover of the eastern region, most critically Donetsk":

“The strategic value is to create a land bridge for RU to Crimea. That won’t directly affect Burisma holdings but it will limit future UK exploration and utilization of offshore opportunities in particular. It will also result in further destabilization of UK nationally and for whatever govt is in power. And the US will respond with even stronger sanctions. Those sanctions will threaten the tenuous support of the EU which does not have the political will to incur steep energy price increases.”