Ukraine&8212Crimea&8212Russia Triangle of Conflict [Paperback]

Taras Kuzio is a Toronto-based leading international expert on contemporary Ukrainian and post-communist politics, nationalism, and European integration at the Centre for Political and Regional Studies, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, and Non-Resident Fellow, Center for Transatlantic Relations (CTR), School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of numerous books and articles.The Crimea was the only region of Ukraine in the 1990s where separatism arose and inter-ethnic conflict potentially could have taken place between the Ukrainian central government, ethnic Russians in the Crimea, and Crimean Tatars. Such a conflict would have inevitably drawn in Russia and Turkey. Russia had large numbers of troops in the Crimea within the former Soviet Black Sea Fleet. Ukraine also was a nuclear military power until 1996. This book analyses two inter-related issues. Firstly, it answers the question why Ukraine-Crimea-Russia traditionally have been a triangle of conflict over a region that Ukraine, Tatars and Russia have historically claimed. Secondly, it explains why inter-ethnic violence was averted in Ukraine despite Crimea possessing many of the ingredients that existed for Ukraine to follow in the footsteps of inter-ethnic strife in its former Soviet neighbourhood in Moldova (Trans-Dniestr), Azerbaijan (Nagorno Karabakh), Georgia (Abkhazia, South Ossetia), and Russia (Chechnya).The material in Kuzio's book will be of interest to those with a strong interest in Crimea, and readers can benefit considerably from some of the author's insights, based on many years of research and writing on Ukraine.Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
List of Tables
Introduction
1. Borders: Theory and Practice
2. Regionalism and Separatism in Ukraine
3. Russia-Ukraine: The Border Issue
4. Ukraine-Crimea-Russia: Triangle of Conflict
5. Ukrainian Plƒ8