People & Histories
2014–22

Annexation of Crimea and War in the Donbas

Russia seizes and annexes Crimea and backs an armed separatist war in eastern Ukraine.

Well established warstatehoodidentity

Crimea

In late February 2014, days after Yanukovych fled, unmarked Russian troops seized Crimea’s parliament, airports and military bases. On 16 March a referendum was held under occupation, with no proper voter lists or independent monitors, and the authorities announced 97% support for joining Russia. Russia formally annexed the peninsula on 18 March.

Crimea had been part of Soviet Ukraine since 1954, became an autonomous republic in early 1991 and remained one within independent Ukraine.
  • Crimea (Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine) — Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (signed entries by subject specialists), Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (2024)
  • The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine — Serhii Plokhy, Basic Books (2015)

Russia’s president presented the annexation as a homecoming. “In people’s hearts and minds,” he told parliament, “Crimea has always been an inseparable part of Russia”.

On 27 March the UN General Assembly, by 100 votes to 11 with 58 abstentions, declared the referendum invalid and called on all states not to recognise any change in Crimea’s status.
The annexation also broke the commitments Russia had made in the Budapest Memorandum.
  • Budapest Memorandum (Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine) — Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (signed entries by subject specialists), Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (2024)
  • The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History — Serhii Plokhy, W. W. Norton (2023)
  • The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation (5th ed.) — Andrew Wilson, Yale University Press (2022)

The Donbas

From April 2014, armed separatists seized government buildings in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. They were supplied with Russian weapons and led in part by Russian officers, and at key moments regular Russian troops fought alongside them. The result was a war.

  • The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History — Serhii Plokhy, W. W. Norton (2023)
  • The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation (5th ed.) — Andrew Wilson, Yale University Press (2022)
  • Budapest Memorandum (Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine) — Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (signed entries by subject specialists), Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (2024)
  • Donets Basin (Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine) — Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (signed entries by subject specialists), Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (2024)
The Minsk agreements of 2014–15 reduced the fighting but never ended it.
  • The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History — Serhii Plokhy, W. W. Norton (2023)
  • The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation (5th ed.) — Andrew Wilson, Yale University Press (2022)
By the end of 2021 the UN estimated that 14,200–14,400 people had been killed. At least 3,404 were civilians, a figure that includes the 298 people aboard flight MH17, shot down over the war zone in July 2014.

Russia’s official story was that it was protecting the people of the Donbas from “genocide” by the Kyiv government. In a provisional order of March 2022, the International Court of Justice said it had no evidence substantiating that allegation.

What it changed

The war pushed many Ukrainians, including Russian speakers in the south and east, towards a firmer Ukrainian identity.

Regional differences in how people saw the Maidan and Russia were still sharp in 2015.
Over the following decade, and especially after 2022, surveys show them narrowing, though wartime polls cannot reach occupied areas or most refugees.

How it's seen
Ukraine and most UN member states

An illegal occupation and annexation of Ukrainian territory, and a war waged through proxies and regular troops. The 2014 referendum in Crimea has no validity.

The Russian state view

Crimea, "always an inseparable part of Russia", freely chose reunification by referendum, and Russia was protecting the people of the Donbas from "genocide" by the Kyiv government.

Why it matters today

Ukraine

For Ukrainians the war did not start in 2022. It started in 2014. These eight years turned many Russian-speaking Ukrainians against Russia, strengthened Ukrainian self-identification, and left Ukrainians deeply sceptical of ceasefires that do not hold.