Brezhnev returned Crimea to Russia in 1964

Patrick1978

Gone Fishin'
Point of divergence: Following the overthrow of Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev declared the 1954 transfer of Crimea to be null and void, pushing for the immediate return of the Crimean Oblast from the Ukrainian SSR back to the Russian SFSR.
 

stevej713

Can't really see how anything would change, except the drama of 2014 wouldn't happen, or would take a different form. Crimea isn't too particularly valuable in and of itself.
 

David T

Why would he, though? It annoys the Ukrainians without any real purpose since all the important decision were made in Moscow, anyway. And the Brezhnev era was not noted for changes in internal borders.
 

22000 Kevin

Well Western and Russian Federation relations will not be as ruined by sanctions in this world but the whole Russian backed insurgency in Eastern Ukraine will still happen if the Ukrainians launch a coup against any Russian friendly leader.
 

David T

I don't see the point of having such an unlikely POD when the results you are presumably interested in (how are post-1991 Russian-Ukrainian relations different? how is 2014 different?) can be reached by the much more plausible POD of simply not having Khrushchev make the transfer to Ukraine in the first place in 1954, or have him outvoted in the Presidium. (Apparently Molotov was the only member to speak out against it there, but there were probably others who were unenthusiastic about the idea but didn't think it important enough to challenge the First Secretary. Shepilov later claimed that many others agreed with Molotov: "However, was it worth having an argument in the Presidium about this—in the honeymoon period after Stalin's death—when everyone agreed to preserve "unity" and not make things more difficult for the leadership? Was it worth it?" https://books.google.com/books?id=RwfIEhLDaMsC&pg=PA312)

But in 1964 if anyone had proposed reversing the decision the response would probably be "So we changed the signs, the newspapers, the radio broadcasts, etc. from Russian to Ukrainian and now we have to change them back again? What's the point of that?"
 

Borya

22000 Kevin said:
Well Western and Russian Federation relations will not be as ruined by sanctions in this world but the whole Russian backed insurgency in Eastern Ukraine will still happen if the Ukrainians launch a coup against any Russian friendly leader.
Click to expand...
Which out Crimea referendum. Separatism may not get enough motivation. So no Donbas war.
 
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