But the Ukrainian leaders’ problems with the Crimea in the fall of 1991 were not all of Gorbachev’s making. In February 1991, the Kyiv authorities agreed to grant the Crimea autonomous status partly because it was the only region of the country where ethnic Ukrainians were a minority (a quarter of the population). More than 67 percent of the population consisted of ethnic Russians, who dominated Crimean politics and culture. There were no Ukrainian-language schools in the Crimea, few ethnic Ukrainians used the Ukrainian language in everyday life, and only half claimed Ukrainian as their native
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