— Crimea is a Ukrainian peninsula, home of Russia’s Black Sea fleet which allows Moscow to extend its military presence throughout the Mediterranean.

For centuries, Crimea was part of Russia, until 1954 when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave the peninsula to Ukraine - at that time a Soviet republic.

Khrushchev’s son Sergei said the decision to give Crimea to Ukraine had to do with economics and agriculture - the building of a hydro-electric dam on the Dnieper River which would irrigate Ukraine’s southern regions, including Crimea....