Russia was able to take Crimea first because the Russian military (army, Air Force and navy) already had bases on the peninsula under a 99 year lease with Ukraine agreed to between 1991 and 1994. They were able to deploy the so-called "little green men" from those bases and seize most of the peninsula in a matter of hours.

2:50

If Russia wants to keep its sphere of influence, they only need to make it an equally or better position to be in than joining the European side. As long as aligning with Russia means giving up sovereignty and signing on to a highly corrupt rather weak economy, people will want the better option.

A bit skimpy in parts. For example, what choices were on the vote in Crimea? One: Independent Crimea, Two: Become part of Russian Federation. No other option given, like continue to be part of Ukraine. I guess it does not matter, since Russian would have made option two the winning option anyway.

I went to the photo exhibition couple of weeks back.. well done IWM

Love your work 👍

thank you good overview that.

Important note. In Ukraine, Maidan 2014 is most often called not "Euromaidan", but "Revolution of Dignity".

The Russo Ukraine War began with the Maidan Protests

Great effort!

1:45

For anyone who wants the answer to the question posed in the title and for those who suffer from "attention span"

I'll bet Yanukovich isn't too thrilled that his mansion got turned into a museum

What a great series from the IWM this is! It is very similar to the style of Prof Mike Clarke, the resident Sky News military analyst: an ability to make politico/military terms easy to understand and an informative style that reinforces that understanding! Thank you and keep up the good work!

A nice presentation, but it sounds like it supports russian claims that Krym had always been russian before Khrushchev gave it to Ukraina in 1954. In reality many cultures have lived on Crimea and dominated it, from the greeks, romans, kyivian rus, kossacks, mongols and tartars. Russia didn't arrive there before they annexed it in 1783, in violation with the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca. This brought on a war with the Ottomans that Russia won, and the Ottomans ceded all claims to Krym in the Treaty of Jassy in 1792. Then Russia lost possession of Krym during the Crimean War, lost it again during the Revolution, when Ukraina first established itself as a republic and Krym was for a brief time part of the republic, and yet again lost it during WWII. So russian possession of Krym has neither been that long and has been interrupted several times. There is a majority of russian speaking peoples and ethinc russians there, but this is a result of the russification of the region, mass deportings of the Tatar population and moving ethinc russians in to fill all public roles. The same has happened in almost every other country Russia has invaded and conquered, thus there are russian minorities in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova etc. today. Even the Holodomor, Stalin's planned hunger in Ukraina, served this purpose. As millions of ukrainians died of starvation, ethinc russians from other parts of Russia was moved into the depopulated lands to farm the land. Thus the strong ethnic russian prescence in Donetsk and Luhansk.

Thank you IWM for this analysis; the truth is a gift to the world.

The video starts with the Russian involvement in Crimea without mentioning the 2014 coup with US involvement.

I appreciate the very balanced view presented in the video.

Very interesting

Why are you showing war footage of the August war in Georgia from 2008?