Another View

"There is an awful lot of tension tonight in Kyiv. As soon as the Russians ... decide to go after Ukraine proper, there are a lot of people I know who are prepared to mobilize, and prepared to go into something called total war. And that's really not something that was talked about yesterday."
Mykhalo Wynnyckyj, Canadian business college professor, Kyiv

"There is mutual dependence, so Russians are interested first of all in stability in Ukraine. Imagine if something would go wrong on an even more massive scale than now ... and millions of Russian Ukrainians move to Russia. How to accommodate them? What about the border, which is so porous right now? It would cost the Russians billions to create a [secure] border."
"Ukraine is too big a country to be swallowed by the European Union. Can you imagine taking care of a country the size of France, with 48 million people, with an economy that is dysfunctional?"
"Real tragedy brought about political change in Ukraine: it was the anti-Semite, bandit government of Mr. Yanukovych, true But now it's the hard part."
"Who will keep Ukrainians warm during the winter, who will give them food, who will keep the factories running for the vast Russian market?"
Piotr Dutkiewivz, political science professor, Carleton University, Ottawa

"I don't think they want to stir the pot too much. I don't think they want to try and destabilize the situation any more."
"There is an assumption to think the worse of Russia."
Seva Gunitsky, University of Toronto's Centre for European, Russian & Eurasian Studies

A soldier rests atop a Russian armored personnel carrier near the town of Bakhchisarai, Ukraine, Friday, Feb. 28, 2014. A convoy of Russian vehicles was parked on the side of the road near the town of Bakhchisarai, apparently because one of them had mechanical problems. IVAN SEKRETAREV — AP Photo

Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2014/02/27/3349646/unidentified-men-patrol-crimean.html#storylink=cpy

So far, Russian troops, identified and unidentified appear to be restricted to those parts of Crimea in close proximity to the Sevastopol Black Sea naval base. Ukraine's newly-appointed admiral of the fleet perhaps viewing the size of Ukraine's ships in the Black Sea port, dwarfed as compared to those of the Russian fleet decided that practicality is the better part of valour as far as he was concerned, and he defected.

Vladimir Putin bemoans the dissolution of the Soviet Union as a catastrophe; he might have been president of a far vaster empire than at present, after all, and the loss of its 15 constituent republics pains him mightily, even yet. He would like to restore what was lost. Stalin was a Georgian, and Georgia's impudence in insisting on its sovereignty was intolerable enough, but Ukraine, which is so much a part of Russia, parting to become more European? Intolerable.

In any event, those who feel they know Russia see Sevastopol orbiting toward Russia with its large Russian-extracted demographics and its Russian-language-and-culture claims prepared for secession, glad to leave Ukraine. It was, after all, a Russian possession until its Ukrainian-born President Nikita Khrushchev decided to gift it to Ukraine.They share an open border, labour flows freely, goods are exchanged without customs, three million Ukrainians work in Russia.

There are more practical, effective, economic measures that could be taken to enable Russia to achieve its goal, other than military. The military option would not be countenanced by the international community, even if they could not, would not and would in any event be unable to do anything to deter Russia from taking that path. But Russia's options are several and one of them is economic stress on a country on the cusp of penury.

Russia could use its economic leverage, refusing to import Ukrainian goods. Although the Ukraine is a pipeline of natural gas to Europe, the price that Russia could levy to Ukraine for its natural gas needs could exert an additional blow on an economy already reeling in serious decline. Ukraine is so financially needy with no guarantees due to political instability that loans will succeed in propping it up, who will offer to gamble the vast amounts it needs to halt its economic free-fall?