OP-ED

Andreas Umland: Crimea could become an expensive liability for Putin

By Andreas Umland.

Published June 10, 2020 at 12:23 am

Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) watches the joint drills by the Northern and Black Sea Fleets from onboard the cruiser Marshal Ustinov in the Black Sea off the coast of Crimea on Jan. 9, 2020.

Photo by AFP

Until a few months ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 2014 seizure of Crimea looked to be the pinnacle of his two-decade reign. The dramatic military takeover of the Ukrainian peninsula transformed European geopolitics. Even more importantly for Putin, it brought momentous change within Russia itself, where it created the so-called “Crimean Consensus” and generated a massive wave of public support for the Kremlin’s confrontational stance towards the Western world.