The third anniversary of the annexation of Crimea by Russia: what promises did Moscow fulfill

Фото: Depositphotos

Three years ago, 17 March 2014, Russia annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.

Edition with the BBC remembered what happened during this time on its territory, and whether Moscow fulfilled its promises to the residents of Crimea.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said then that in a few years the peninsula from the subsidized region could become a donor, Moscow promised to solve the problems with the transport accessibility of the Crimea, with the shortage of water and energy.

In mid-March 2014, in Crimea, in the presence of armed “little green men,” a referendum was held on the annexation of the peninsula to Russia; the UN General Assembly qualified the referendum as having no legal force. Most countries in the world did not recognize the annexation of the peninsula to Russia.

Salary and pension increases

The Russian authorities have increased payments to pensioners and state employees to the all-Russian level. But the prices also became Russian.

For example, in April 2014, the average pension in the Crimea was 5,6 thousand rubles ($ 98), by 2016, this figure rose to 11,6 thousand rubles ($ 203). And product prices from February 2014 to December 2015 increased by 96%.

Pensioners are dissatisfied with high prices, their complaint about this to Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and his answer became a meme on the Internet.

On the complaint of the pensioner that the pension is not indexed, Medvedev said that the pension was not indexed to anyone, because there is no money.

“You hang in here, all the best to you, good mood and health,” the Russian prime minister added.

Inviolability of private property

Shortly before the referendum, Sergei Aksenov promised that there would be no “re-privatization” in Crimea, the objects belonging to the Ukrainian state and Ukrainian politicians would be nationalized by the peninsula.

In the Crimea and Sevastopol, part of the enterprises were indeed nationalized, and the property of Ukrainian businessmen and the private property of some Crimeans were nationalized.

Sometimes this happened without any regulations: people came who introduced themselves as “people's militia” and simply seized property.

Nationalization negatively affected the investment climate in Crimea.

“Think for yourself: who will invest, put money where they can simply be taken away later? This was a typical redistribution of property, and it is exclusively negative. Money and investments love stability and silence. Note that not a single major investor has yet entered the territory of Crimea, except, in fact, the state. And, in my opinion, this is due to the fact that mass nationalization took place there at one time,” says Oleg Nikolaev, head of the Sevastopol branch of Business Russia and businessman.

Non-volatility

Three years ago, the Crimea received about 80% of the required electricity from mainland Ukraine. After the annexation of the peninsula, interruptions in energy supplies and power cuts began. The Russian authorities announced their intention to ensure the independence of the Crimea.

For this purpose, an “energy bridge” was built - cable-overhead power lines and substations that connected the peninsula’s energy system with Russia. The energy bridge became operational at full capacity in May 2016. At the same time, the state of emergency imposed at the end of 2015 after the explosion of power lines on mainland Ukraine was lifted on the peninsula.

For basic generation, Russia plans to build 2 thermal power plants in Crimea - near Simferopol and Sevastopol. They are planned to be put into operation at the end of 2018.

Fuel to the power plant will be supplied via a gas pipeline from the Kuban, which was launched in December 2016.

Water deficiency

For several decades, water flowed to the Crimea along the North-Crimean Canal from the Kakhovka reservoir in the lower reaches of the Dnieper. After the annexation, Ukraine cut off the water supply to the peninsula, and Russia began to search for alternative water supply options for the Crimea.

It was planned to supply water to the peninsula from the Krasnodar Territory and from the Caucasus, to transfer water from the nearby rivers, but none of these projects was implemented. Nowadays, water conduits are being built in the Crimea from groundwater deposits to the Crimean Canal. Water is used from the reserves of the Intermountain Reservoir (Simferopol, Evpatoria, Saki) and the Chernorechensky Reservoir (Sevastopol).

Putin stated at the end of October 2016 that “the severity of the problem associated with drinking water” has been removed, but “the problem as a whole has not yet been resolved.” Water supply is established at the household level, but water supply to many villages is intermittent.

Agriculture does not receive the proper amount of water, and its productivity decreases, especially rice farming has suffered.

Transport accessibility

For free land access to Crimea, Russia is building the Kerch Bridge, a high-speed highway on the Taman Peninsula and the Tavrida highway on the territory of Crimea. A key part of this project is the construction of the bridge.

The bridge length of 19 km will include 4 automobile lanes, as well as 2 railway tracks. The cost of construction will be almost 228 billion rubles (almost $ 4 billion).

Three state languages

“We respect the representatives of all nationalities living in Crimea. This is their common home, their small homeland, and it will be right if in Crimea - I know that Crimeans support this - there will be 3 equal state languages: Russian, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar,” Putin said in March 2014 after the referendum .

In March 2015, Aksenov reported that there will be no broadcasting in the Ukrainian language in Crimea. The OSCE reported in its report that teaching in schools in Ukrainian is declining due to pressure from the authorities.

The Ministry of Education of the Crimea often declares that there are electives for the study of the Ukrainian language, but they, as a rule, are not conducted because there are no textbooks on the Ukrainian language and literature.

A similar situation exists with the Crimean Tatar language.

Relations of the Crimean Tatars and the Russian authorities

There are 12 Crimean Tatar schools in Crimea, however, according to Russian laws, high school classes can only be taught in Russian. There are also electives - 1 hour of studying the Crimean Tatar language per week.

There is in the Crimea and the Crimean Tatar media.

“Here we should immediately make a reservation: the list of media that Russia represents at the International Court in the Hague as Crimean Tatar is a fiction, since their statutory documentation simply provides for the Crimean Tatar language, but they are not published in it,” says one of the leaders of the Crimean Tatar national movement Nariman Jelal.

Tourism

In November, 2015, the head of the Crimea, Sergey Aksenov, instructed to develop a program of collective accommodation for tourists, not inferior in price and quality to leisure in Egypt and Turkey.

In February, 2017, Aksyonov, stated that the Crimea was not yet ready to compete with the Turkish resorts due to poorly developed infrastructure and the lack of trained customer-oriented personnel. Although in the Crimea there is no exact method of counting tourists, every year authorities report an increase in tourist flow, although many people on the Internet claim “empty beaches”. In 2017, 6 million tourists are waiting for Crimea in the Crimea.

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