Russia’s takeover of Crimea did not begin in 2014. In the second part of "Crimea: The War Before the War," the Kyiv Independent’s War Crimes Investigations Unit examines how Moscow moved from early pressure to direct attempts to seize Ukrainian territory.
The Kyiv Independent's journalists Francis Farrell and Olena Zashko followed a group of Ukrainian military medics as they journeyed from the heat of battle in war-torn Ukraine to the serene forests of Sweden for a short mental health retreat.