CRIMEA PRIMER

The Crimean Peninsula, the main flashpoint in Ukraine’s crisis, is a proRussia part of Ukraine separated from the rest of the country geographically, historically and politically. Key points: Black Sea

It’s all but an island in the Black Sea except for a narrow strip of land in the north connecting it to the mainland. On its eastern shore, a finger of land reaches out almost to Russia. It’s best known in the West as the site of the 1945 Yalta Conference. Why it’s part of Ukraine

It only became part of Ukraine when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave the peninsula to his native land in 1954. This hardly mattered until the Soviet Union broke up in 1991 and Crimea ended up in Ukraine. Today, nearly 60 percent of its population of 2 million identify themselves as Russians. Black Sea fleet

On Crimea’s southern shore sits Sevastopol, where the Russian Black Sea fleet leases its home at least through 2042. Russia fears that Ukraine’s new pro-Western government could evict it. The Tatars

Crimea fell to Russia in the late 18th century when Catherine the Great’s troops defeated its Tatar hosts.

The Tatars, who were brutally deported in 1944 under Stalin, returned amid the breakup of the Soviet Union and now make up about 12 percent of the population. They want Crimea to remain part of Ukraine.