Sergei Khrushchev
The transfer of Crimea to Ukrainian SSR in 1954 was not a political decision. About this on air of the program “Gordon” on the TV channel “112 Ukraine” said the son of the first Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Khrushchev, Sergei. Video fragment available on YouTube.
“Father (Nikita Khrushchev) gave Ukraine the Crimea, because if you look at the map, the Crimea is attached to Ukraine, and when they began to deal with the economy and, most importantly, to build the canal, which is now unfortunately buried, the planning Commission said that it is better, if will be built under one legal entity and was transferred to Ukraine, as well as passed many regions,” said Khrushchev.
He also stated that no policy decision on transfer of Crimea to Ukraine was not, as well as attempts to appease the Ukrainian bureaucracy. “It was a structural decision and correct. Crimea began to revive, planted a lot of grapes,” — said Khrushchev.
On March 16 involuntary transfer of control of the Crimea to Kiev in 1954, told the first President of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk. According to him, Khrushchev, having been on the Peninsula in 1953, was horrified by the poverty of the local population.
Sevastopol and the Crimea was reunited with Russia after the March 2014 referendum in which the majority of respondents supported such a decision. Kiev refused to recognize the results of the plebiscite. In Moscow insist that the procedure conforms to the norms of international law.
In February 1954, when the Soviet Union headed by Nikita Khrushchev, the Peninsula was transferred from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the region became part of Ukraine.