Word: ukrainians
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...debate revolves around an ironic tribute to the two states' shared history. In 1954 Nikita Khrushchev transferred the region from the Russian Federation to the Ukrainian Republic as a "gift" commemorating 300 years of Russian-Ukrainian unity. But the transfer was largely symbolic. Moscow's writ still ran in the Crimea, just as it did in the time of the Czars. Since last year, however, when Kiev started agitating for independence, Russians in Crimea launched a movement to secede from Ukraine and rejoin Russia...
...Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk tried to slow the movement, warning that "there can be no guarantee that events in the Crimea will not lurch out of control and that human blood will not be spilled." But the Crimean parliament ignored him and last month passed a resolution calling for a referendum on independence. The response from Kiev was swift: the Ukrainian parliament declared the Crimean resolution unconstitutional, and government officials hinted that the Crimean legislature might be dissolved and direct rule from Kiev imposed...
Under pressure, Crimean leaders backed down and rescinded the resolution, & but not before Russian Vice President Alexander Rutskoi, the Kremlin's standard-bearer for increasingly influential Russian nationalists, blasted Ukrainian politicians for portraying Russia as "an insidious empire" and trying to break up the Commonwealth. "The referendum in Crimea must be held, and no one can ban it with force or with threats," Rutskoi insisted in a newspaper article. Two days later, in a closed-door session, the Russian parliament upped the ante by voting to annul the 1954 transfer of the Crimea to Ukraine as "an illegal...
...parliament in Kiev last week rejected the Russian allegations, but the Ukrainians did agree in concert with Crimean leaders to grant the region special economic status. But Kravchuk's government, which depends on support from Ukrainian nationalists in parliament, has flatly defined the Crimean problem as "an internal affair" that does not concern foreign states. "There will never be negotiations," says Vladimir Kryzhanovsky, Ukraine's ambassador to Moscow. To negotiate, he argues, would open a Pandora's box by calling into question all the myriad treaties and border determinations made during 74 years of Soviet rule. "If we negate everything...
Wrangling over the Black Sea force has poisoned Russian-Ukrainian relations for months, with Kiev demanding at least 30% of the fleet as the foundation for a new national navy and Moscow refusing to yield. Now, following Yeltsin's announcement, a commission will be created to decide how to divide up the fleet equitably...