Five years after Russia’s land-grab, Tikhon Dzyadko says it is easier to imagine something that was “unthinkable” a few years ago – the reunification of North and South Korea – than hoping to return Crimea to Ukraine. Soon after the 2014 annexation, some 86% of Russians supported Putin’s actions and his popularity soared. Even Alexei Navalny, Putin’s fiercest critic said that he would let Crimeans decide over their sense of belonging in a referendum should be be elected president.

Even though Navalny is barred from running, and there is no chance for him to succeed Putin, he “did not consider the option of simply handing Crimea back to Ukraine.” To understand why, one has to know that Crimea has loomed large for Russia since the German-born Tsarina Catherine the Great annexed it from the Ottoman Empire in 1783. Crimea is of geostrategic value to Russia, giving its navy access not only to the Black Sea, but to the whole Mediterranean Sea.

When Russia signed the Treaty of Paris in 1856, after its defeat in the Crimean War, which decimated its military and ruined its economy, it agreed to dismantle its naval base in the port of Sevastopol, as demanded by Britain, France and their allies, who sought to eliminate the threat posed by Russia in the Black Sea. But the concession didn’t last long. Russia began to rebuild Sevastopol during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War. After being bombed by Nazi Germany during World War II, Joseph Stalin ordered to restore the war-ravaged Crimea.

In 1954 Premier Nikita Khrushchev transferred the Crimean Oblast to Kiev. It was not a big deal at the time, because the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was part of the Soviet Union. The award of Crimea was seen as a "gift" for Ukraine, whose people had suffered terribly during World War II. Khrushchev, though Russian himself, felt an affinity with Ukraine. Before the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 many apparently expected Boris Yeltsin to demand that Crimea be returned to Russia. It did not happen.

When Ukraine held a referendum on independence in December 1991, 54% of Crimeans favoured independence from Russia. Following a brief tussle with the newly independent government in Kiev, Crimea agreed to remain part of Ukraine, but with significant autonomy, including its own constitution and legislature and its own president. In 1997, Ukraine and Russia signed a bilateral Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership, which formally allowed Russia to keep its Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, under a lease that has been extended until 2042.

In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea following the Euromaidan protests that pitted the pro-European camp in Ukraine against the pro-Russian eastern region. In an illegal move that violated Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sparked a war that has displaced nearly 2 million people and destroyed the country’s infrastructure, Putin’s justified the aggression, in part, by asserting that Crimea is mostly comprised of ethnic Russians, despite a sizable Tartar population. Besides, Russian nationalist and Crimean separatists do not share the same agenda.

Western sanctions against the Kremlin over its annexation of Crimea and aggression in Ukraine have crippled Russia’s long-term economic prospects. There are three types of sanctions. The first restricts access to Western financial markets and services for designated Russian state-owned enterprises in the banking, energy, and defence sectors. The second places an embargo on exports to Russia of designated high-technology oil exploration and production equipment. The third is an embargo on exports to Russia of designated military and dual-use goods.

The combined effect of these sanctions and the rapid fall in oil prices caused significant downward pressure on the value of the Rouble and increased capital flight. The steep economic decline had taken a toll on ordinary Russians, who are grappling with rising food prices and falling living standards. Putin’s approval ratings had plunged after adopting unpopular pension reforms and raising taxes to shore up public finances. His military adventures in Ukraine and Syria, as well as risky loans to Venezuela have totalled well over $20 billion.

The author says, the “stalemate in Crimea is likely to persist.” Mourning the demise of the Soviet Union and calling it “a major geopolitical disaster of the [twentieth] century,” Putin is determined to restore Russia to its former glory, like retaking Crimea. “With no solution at hand, the West may need to be patient and take comfort in history. The US did not recognize the Baltic states as being part of the Soviet Union for 50 years. Then the Soviet Union collapsed, and the problem resolved itself.”