The enormous financial means that West Germany is still transferring to East Germany, 30 years after re-unification, suggest that Moscow’s grab of Crimea in 2014 has been an ill-calculated adventure. Sustaining over a long period of time the highly-subsidised economy of the annexed peninsula will be beyond the capacities of a more and more crisis-ridden Russian state. With deep historical connections between Russians and Crimea lacking, they will be less and less ready to sacrifice scarce financial resources to the remote peninsula during a time when Russia’s own population is suffering economically.
Russia's War Against Ukraine
OP-ED
Andreas Umland: Why Russia will eventually hand Crimea back to Ukraine
The Russian three-mast ship Khersones sails during a parade as part of the Navy Day celebration in Sevastopol, Crimea, Ukrainian peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014, on July 28, 2019.
