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).
