Ukraine, Russia, Crimea, Pushkin and two Revolutions.

Politically, Crimea did not belong to anybody. The independent Crimean Khanate was annexed by Imperial Russia in 1783 as a consequence of the Russo-Turkish War. Before that time, the enclave had been bossed by powers as diverse as the Cimmerians and the Golden Horde.
Geographically, Crimea is part of Ukraine, even though some folks consider the Isthmus of Perekop that connects it to the Ukrainian mainland to be too narrow. Too bad geography does not determine national boundaries, otherwise the US will not be US and Russia will not be Russia. Many of the rickety republics in Africa would not have existed. A country is a sum of its political history, especially violent political history. Which brings to the mind two revolutions: the Russian Revolution of 1917 that would eventually bring Nikita Khrushchev, an Ukrainian, to power in the old Soviet Union. Honestly, when the old boy was transferring Crimea from Russian to Ukraine, it is very doubtful he envisaged the almighty Soviet Union would disintegrate one day. It bizarrely did in another revolution, a sort of revolution and Russia would part ways with Ukraine, though not completely and some folks in Russia must have cast a very rueful glance at a historic part, political part that seemed lost forever.
It was another revolution that would return it to Russia:  the colorful revolutions in Ukraine  that would eventually lead to the sacking of the pro-Russian prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich, in 2014. Folks in the Russia-leaning east did not like it, did not like it at all, and the beautiful country got partitioned, effectively, into three: Kiev, Donetsk and Crimea. It didn't take Putin much effort to annex Crimea. The 1997 Partition Treaty and the 2010 Kharkiv Pact, now in retrospect, seemed to have been a gross indiscretion on the part of Ukraine. It left a foreign navy, a much bigger foreign navy on its own soil. The Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol was to play the crucial role in the annexation of Crimea. So Crimea had been a puppet on strings, revolutionary strings.
Which brings to mind Alexander Pushkin's, Russia's greatest poet, take on revolutions. In his novella, 'The Captain's Daughter', the hero was to see the the carnage of an insurrection  and remark that the most enduring changes he had witnessed were those effected by peaceful negotiations and not violent revolutions.
So another revolution might yet change the status of Ukraine. A lesson those frenzied faces in the Orange and Pink Revolutions in Kiev might have well heeded. Be very careful, very careful of what you wish for and try as much as possible to take into account the feelings of others. The outcomes of revolutions are very difficult to predict: Stalin, guillotine, Islamic State.
A revolution brought Crimea into Ukraine, another revolution took it away. Another revolution might take it back. After all, apart from rain and taxes, the only constant things are revolutions.