[dnh44]

Crimea de facto belongs to Russia now and that isn't going to change to no matter how many warships cruise past it.

Realistically it's difficult to imagine any scenario where Crimea ends up belonging to Ukraine again.

Now that Biden has waived the sanctions against the Nordstream 2 project, Ukraine will lose it's strategic importance as a gas transit country. At the same time Russia's importance as an energy supplier to Europe will increase. It won't be much longer before no one cares about Ukraine or Crimea anymore.

[zero_deg_kevin]

No. Crimea does not belong to Russia. That’s nonsense.

[dnh44]

Yes, Crimea does indeed de facto belong to Russia, although de jure it is recognised by most countries as belonging to Ukraine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_facto

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_jure

[zero_deg_kevin]

I’ll leave the semantic arguments to the Latin majors. Russia may see some legitimacy to its claim to Crimean territory, but it’s a self-asserted claim and it should be treated with as much respect as any other self-asserted claim.

Again, I assert that I am mayor of Moscow.

[dnh44]

I’m not talking about semantics nor about the international legality of it.

The difference between your assertion and this situation Is that in addition to asserting that Crimea is now a part of Russia they also control and govern it. I don’t think there is a lot anyone can do about that.

I don’t think that’s a contentious claim to make, it’s simply just the reality of it.

What will be more interesting will be to see how far Western/NATO countries will go to change that reality and how far Russia will go to prevent that.

[sergeykish]

It is called "occupied". Yet Crimea belongs to Ukraine.