According to US media reports, Washington's plan to end the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, launched in February 2022, includes the US recognizing Russian control of the peninsula -- a prospect unacceptable to Kyiv.
Here are some facts about the territory.
The Black Sea peninsula has a rugged landscape and beautiful beaches as well as ancient remains and architecture reflecting a diverse history of settlers including Greeks, Romans, Tatars and Turks.
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, himself from Ukraine, transferred Crimea from Russia to Ukraine in 1954 as a “gift” to commemorate 300 years of a treaty between the Ukrainian Cossacks and the Russian tsardom.
A year after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 Kyiv gave Crimea the status of an autonomous republic in a bid to prevent separatist tendencies among its mainly Russian-speaking population.
Despite this agreement, the Crimean issue poisoned relations between Moscow and Kyiv for years. Some regional officials regularly challenged Ukraine's right to be in charge there.
After pro-Western authorities came to power in Ukraine following the Maidan revolution in February 2014, clashes erupted in Crimea between pro-Moscow and pro-Kyiv supporters.
Those soldiers, in balaclavas and without military insignia, quickly took control of public buildings and besieged Ukrainian military bases. President Vladimir Putin only later acknowledged that they were Russian soldiers.
The vote was declared null and void by Kyiv and the West, which denounced as illegal its annexation, formalised in a treaty signed by Putin.
The European Union, the United States, Britain and Canada adopted initial sanctions against Russia, in the form of asset freezes, embargoes targeting specific sectors and a ban on investments in Crimea.
Crimea, which covered 4.5 percent of Ukraine's territory, was integrated into Russia in 2014, becoming an autonomous republic with its own government and institutions subordinate to Moscow.
The ruble replaced the Ukrainian hryvnia currency and the peninsula switched to Moscow time, while Russian companies, including some banks and telephone operators, set up branches there.
Local authorities are massively distributing Russian passports to the population, while the Crimean Tatars, a Muslim minority who voted overwhelmingly against the annexation, are subject to repression.
Since 2018, the peninsula has been linked to mainland Russia by the Kerch road bridge, 19 kilometres (12 miles) long. It has been struck and damaged by Ukrainian forces numerous times.
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