#6 The Crimean Peninsula
Despite being attached by land to Ukraine, Crimea became an autonomous republic under Soviet rule in 1921, because of the strategic position of the land. At the start, neither Russian nor Ukrainian people were a majority in the region, as there were people who lived there since the 13th century when the Russian Empire conquered them.
In the 1920s, the Soviets cultivated a culture of the Crimean Tatars, separate from Russia and Ukraine. When Stalin took over the region from the Nazis, he deported the Tatars by force: an action that many historians are considering a genocide. This led to them disappearing overnight and having a Russian majority move in.
Afterward, Khrushchev, who was the ruler of the Ukrainian SSR, organized the transfer of Crimea from Russia to Ukraine, to rebuild it after WWII devastated it and to appease the Ukrainian people backing him up. He also helped the new Russian majority in the region and would help against the nationalist Ukrainians in the west of the country.
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