The brutal, bloody history behind Putin’s Crimea speech --- On the day that Russia annually commemorates the country's victory in World War II, President Vladimir Putin made an appearance in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula his government has annexed from Ukraine -- much to the ire of Kiev and the international community. As The Washington Post's Michael Birnbaum explains here, the visit on Friday was the clearest sign yet that Moscow will not give up the territory now that it's back in the Russian fold. -- In a speech in Sevastopol, the home of the Russian Black Sea fleet, Putin hailed the heroes of earlier Russian battles fought by this Crimean port: --- The Crimean War (1853-1856) is described now as a chaotic, nightmarish affair for all the European powers involved, with blundering military leaders sending their hapless charges to gruesome ends. The famous phrase that soldiers in combat were "lions led by donkeys" emerged from the trenches and mud-packed redoubts that surrounded Sevastopol, which was besieged for 349 awful days between 1854 and 1855 until the Russians finally surrendered. --- At least a quarter-million Russians were buried in mass graves around Crimea by the war's end, though some estimates suggest that figure is closer to 1 million deaths -- the bulk of which were caused not by battle but by disease and starvation brought on by the neglect and indifference of Russia's military leadership. -- Nearly a century later, more horror was visited upon Crimea as Nazi forces steamrolled into the peninsula in 1941 as part of their wider invasion of the Soviet Union. Retreating Russian forces holed up once more in Sevastopol and endured a merciless siege through July 1942. -- The Germans used some of the biggest guns on earth -- including a beastly 800mm railroad gun dubbed "Thor" -- to pound away at Soviet defenses, on top of relentless bombardment by the Luftwaffe. When the Soviets recognized that there was no more point in holding out, they beat a hasty and largely doomed retreat: The top commanders escaped by submarine, but nearly 100,000 soldiers were captured, while roughly 20,000 had been killed over the course of the battle. The Nazis captured some 3.5 million Soviet soldiers during the war, sending many to slave labor camps, where the vast majority died. -- By the time Soviet forces reclaimed the city in 1944, it was a ghostly ruin. Of a population of 110,000 that existed there before the war, only 3,000 remained. Some 20 million Soviet citizens died in World War II. - More, Ishaan Tharoor - Washingtonpost