Once part of the Russian empire, today an autonomous republic of Ukraine, Crimea is days away from a referendum on secession (March 16). <br /><br />Russia has one of its four naval fleets based in Crimea, but the importance to Moscow of the Black Sea peninsula is more than strategic.<br /><br />Crimea was gifted to Ukraine in 1954 by Soviet leader Nikita Kruschev. At the time, few could imagine that the USSR would collapse decades later.<br /><br />Ukraine became independent in 1991, Crimea within its borders.<br /><br />According to the country’s most recent census, conducted in 2001, close to 60 percent of Crimea’s population are ethnic Russians and around 22 percent are ethnic Ukrainians.<br /><br />In Ukraine’s 2010 presidential election almost 80 percent of Crimean voters supported Russia-leaning candidate Victor Yanukovych.<br /><br />Crimea’s March 16 referendum is widely expected deliver a result in favour of putting the peninsula under Russian control.<br /><br />There is bitter opposition, both within Ukraine and abroad, to the referendum and to Russia’s escalating military presence on the peninsula.<br /><br />However, if Moscow were to annex Crimea it would be seen by many Russian nationalists as the return of the territory to its natural home.
