Kravchuk: Ukraine was forced to take Crimea in 1954
The First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, forced the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Alexei Kirichenko, to take the Crimean peninsula “under its wing,” as the first Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk stated in an interview with the Russian online magazine Slon.
“Khrushchev went to Kyiv, came in to the first Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Alexei Kirichenko, and asked him to take the Crimea under its wing, stating, 'It’s easier for you here, the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions are close to the Crimea, you’ll be able to help.' Because there was no food, water, nothing in the Crimea. And Kirichenko says I can’t, it’s not a part of the plan',” Kravchuk stated.
According to the first President of Ukraine, after that Khrushchev literally forced Ukraine “to agree to the Crimea.”
“Then Khrushchev brought Kirichenko on to his train, brings him to Moscow and with the Political Bureau of the CPSU forces– I repeat– forces Ukraine to agree with this decision. This is the answer to the question that Khrushchev gave the Crimea. Ukraine was to just simply take it. And Ukraine over the years, I estimated when I was President, invested $100 billion into the Crimea. Channels, roads, water, construction of the southern coast, houses – it’s easy to estimate…That is, all that talk about that someone gave us something, and now, allegedly are taking it back, is not true – a living part has been ripped off,” Kravchuk stressed in the interview with Slon.