‘Ten years of the Crimean spring,” say billboards around the Crimean peninsula. “It all started with us.” Last weekend’s Russian presidential election coincided with the 10-year anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. The swift seizure of the peninsula in March that year, Vladimir Putin’s response to the Maidan Revolution in Kyiv, was indeed the beginning of 10 years of military action against Ukraine.
At the time, although almost no other countries recognised the annexation as legitimate, most people believed Russian rule was likely to remain in Crimea for decades. Since the start
