I'm gonna be that guy and chime in a little bit. BTW I'm a coder in Hawaii so if anyone here is ever in the Aloha state, feel free to hit me up.

Crimea is not as simple as people are making it out to be.

Crimea was administratively handed over from Russia to Ukraine in the late 1950's or early 1960's when there was no "Ukraine" or "Russia", just the "USSR". Before that Crimea was a part of Russia.

Russia won it from the Crimean Khanate in the 1600's. The Crimean Khanate originated from the Golden Horse in the 1200's.

The USSR deported 10's of thousands of Crimean Tatars in the 1960's even though they've "belonged there" for America's entire history almost 4 times over.

Side note, Russian culture originates from Kiev, which is Ukraines capital. Ukraine vaguely means "the border lands" in Russian. (This is not saying Ukraine belongs to Russia... in fact... it could be an argument that Russia belongs to Ukraine! Haha)

In fact the people who ruled Kiev as it got ransacked by Mongols were called the Kievian Rus....

So although Moscow was already burnt to the ground, the Grand Duchy of Moskovskoye used the Moscow area as a generally "more out of the way" outpost to survive and managed to fend off their biggest opponent Tver, thus resulting in Moscow becoming what it is today after many ups and downs.