You're reading: Los Angeles Times: 4 years after Russia annexed Crimea, peninsula in limbo

The wind whips across a narrow, sandy strait, carrying the salty smell of the Sea of Azov. Ukrainians stand in line, sometimes for hours, at the makeshift checkpoint separating mainland Ukraine from Russian-annexed Crimea.

One by one, they hand their passports to the border guards, who work out of an open shipping crate-turned-border-post.

Read more here.