Timeline of the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation guard post has been unblocked after several days of occupation. Head of Euromaidan — Krym Andriy Shchekun has been kidnapped in Simferopol. More than 200 scholars of Ukrainian and Russian affairs have undersigned an appeal for a peaceful, sustainable, and fair resolution to the current conflict. Two Ukrainian journalists (Olena Maksymenko and Oles Kromplyas) disappeared and are feared kidnapped at the border to Crimea. Several hundred residents of Crimea, mainly Crimean Tatars, have left Crimea for security reasons according to the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine. Russian forces have seized the main military hospital in Simferopol. Prominent Russian dissident
Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation Russia would treat Crimea the same way as it had treated South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Crimea is populated by an ethnic Russian majority and a minority of both ethnic Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, and thus demographically possessed one of Ukraine's largest ethnic Russian populations. Already in 2011, some analysts speculated that the Russian government had irredentist plans: The Euromaidan protest movement began in Kiev in late November 2013 after President Viktor Yanukovych, of the Party of Regions, suspended the signing of the Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement. Yanukovych won the 2010 presidential election with strong support from voters in the Autonomous