Russia may voluntarily return Crimea to Ukraine

Former Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk believes that Russia may voluntarily return the Crimea to Ukraine some day just as it had given it away to Ukraine in 1954.

"There was a time when Russia could not handle the Crimea, so she gave it to us. Now I am witnessing a similar situation. Ukraine has invested about $100 billion in the peninsula. Although the Russians have built the bridge there, the Crimea requires colossal costs," Kravchuk said in an interview with Ukrayinskaya Pravda publication.

According to him, Russia may return the Crimea to Ukraine some time in remote future. In addition, the former Ukrainian leader believes that the delivery of the peninsula is possible only under international pressure.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stressed before that the conditions under which Russia could return the Crimea to Ukraine do not exist.

The Crimea became a Russian region after a referendum held there in March 2014, at which the majority of Crimean residents voted for reunification with Russia.

On February 19, 1954, the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Soviet Union passed the decree to hand over the Crimean region from the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) to the Ukrainian SSR within the Soviet Union. Then-Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, virtually gave Crimea away to Ukraine.