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).

Taras Kuzio is Professor of Political Science at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy and Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society in London. He is the author and editor of 22 books, including Russian Nationalism and the Russian-Ukrainian War (Routledge 2022), The Sources of Russia's Great Power Politics (E-IR 2018, with Paul D¿Anieri), Putin¿s War Against Ukraine (University of Toronto and Dukh i Litera 2017, 2019), Ukraine: Democratization, Corruption and the New Russian Imperialism (Praeger 2015), Democratic Revolution in Ukraine (Routledge 2009), Ukraine ¿ Crimea ¿ Russia (ibidem 2007), and Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives on Nationalism (ibidem 2007). Kuzio has guest-edited special issues of Communist and Post-Communist Studies, East European Politics and Society, Demokratizatsiya, Eurasian Geography and Economics, Nationalities Papers, Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, and Problems of Post-Communism.