Ten years ago Russia annexed Crimea, paving the way for war in Ukraine
Al Jazeera
Russia’s annexation of the peninsula was not recognised by any nation except Moscow.
On March 7, 2014, a husky man in his late 30s with closely cropped hair addressed an uneven line of four dozen “volunteers”.
Next to him were three men in body armour and green uniforms, with no insignia.
The crowd of men, aged 20 to 50, were gathered outside a white Stalinist-era government building in Sevastopol, a port in Ukraine’s Crimea.
They were uphill from the seashore, next to huge sequoias, blossoming cherry trees and elderly ladies holding hand-written posters that read, “In Russia through a referendum” and “I want to go home to Russia.”
Eight days later, Moscow would hold a “referendum” on the Black Sea peninsula’s “return” to Russia, and the men were a nascent “self-defence unit” that would “prevent provocations,” the man said.
