Irredentist Annexation (Crimea)
Journal: Cambridge University Press eBooks
Year: 2023

Chapter 5 is the first part of our analytic narrative. We describe equilibrium selection in the immediate aftermath of the Maidan events. The first theater was Crimea. The question was whether Russian-speaking elites in peripheral communities would accept the first storyline (“Dignity”) and remain loyal to the Ukrainian state, or accept the second storyline (“coup”) and opt for sedition. Elites in Crimea coordinated rapidly on sedition. The only militias in the streets were pro-Russia (though a