Actually, Crimea was Russian for centuries before it became a pawn in Khrushchev's political rise in 1954
Transfer of Crimea in the Soviet Union - Wikipedia
"The transfer of the
Crimean Oblast to Ukraine has been described as a 'symbolic gesture', marking the 300th anniversary of the 1654
Treaty of Pereyaslav.
[5][11][12]
"It was also attributed to
Communist Party first secretary Nikita Khrushchev, although the person who signed the document was Chairman
Kliment Voroshilov, the Soviet Union's
de jure head of state.
[13]
"Mark Kramer, professor of Cold War Studies at
Harvard University, also claimed that the transfer was partly to help Khruschev's then-precarious political position against the Prime Minister
Georgii Malenkov through winning support of the
First Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party Oleksiy Kyrychenko.
"Kramer believed that the transfer also aimed to greatly increase the number of ethnic Russians in the Ukrainian SSR which itself was going through problems integrating previous Polish territory due to organized Ukrainian nationalist resistance."