Why was it OK for Ukraine to break away from the USSR, but not for Crimea to break away from Ukraine? A History

I thought I would re-post this discussion of the recent history of Crimea, more than five years after I first wrote it . I have made some minor changes to the original, first published on February 21, 2015.

 

All right, I admit it, it���s not that brief. I didn���t have time to shorten it. But what follows is a condensed history of the argument about who should control Crimea, one which still rages and which (as usual) is not as simple as politicians like to claim it is.

 

I���ll begin with...