Sovereign Possession

"It's my strong belief we must keep the pressure on and we must continue to maintain sanctions and maintain putting in place strong steps to dissuade this behaviour. What the Putin regime has done cannot be tolerated and can never be accepted."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canada

Russian President Putin defended Russia’s move to annex Crimea, saying that the rights of ethnic Russians have been abused by the Ukrainian government. (AP photo)

- See more at: http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/defiant-putin-signs-treaty-on-crimea-russia-suspended-from-g8/article1-1196738.aspx#sthash.Pi8Gvi3I.dpuf

President Putin defends his move to annex Crimea / AP Photo

Russian President Putin defended Russia’s move to annex Crimea, saying that the rights of ethnic Russians have been abused by the Ukrainian government. (AP photo)

- See more at: http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/defiant-putin-signs-treaty-on-crimea-russia-suspended-from-g8/article1-1196738.aspx#sthash.Pi8Gvi3I.dpuf

Russian President Putin defended Russia’s move to annex Crimea, saying that the rights of ethnic Russians have been abused by the Ukrainian government. (AP photo) - See more at: http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/defiant-putin-signs-treaty-on-crimea-russia-suspended-from-g8/article1-1196738.aspx#sthash.Pi8Gvi3I.dpuf

Both Prime Minister Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama have called the referendum that took place in Crimea on Sunday illegitimate, conducted under illegal Russian military occupation. It remains to be seen how effective those sanctions that resulted from these actions will be, but Russian President Vladimir Putin has sneered at these puny attempts to have him re-examine his and the Kremlin's actions. Consolidated by the consequent signing ceremony absorbing Crimea into the Russian Federation.

The overwhelming "yes" vote to union with Russia has catapulted the Crimean peninsula back into the Russian sphere to the complacent satisfaction of Mr. Putin and the ecstatic joy of Russian Crimeans. Not so the ethnic Tatars representing a mere 12% of the current Crimean population but whose territory it once was, as the indigenous people of Crimea whose presence was cleared through forced migration to South Asia by Josef Stalin. Nor are the 20% ethnic Ukrainians seeing much joy.

The question is whether the acquisition of Crimea will satisfy the ambitions of Vladimir Putin on his way to re-inventing the Soviet Union. Is East Ukraine next? Are there designs over Kyiv? Massing some 60,000 Russian troops along the eastern border with Ukraine sends quite the message. One that, surprisingly tens of thousands of Russians marched in Moscow to protest, aghast at what their country had done to a close neighbour.

Should Mr. Putin have his troops advance further into Ukraine, what then, will be the reaction of the West, of NATO, of the United States? The potential consequences are thought-brutalizing. Who knows how Putin's mind works; the Russian economy is not exactly bursting with excess rubles to be thrown into the air at random; the cost of the Sochi Olympics must be dealt with and their excessive graft, as well as the prospect of financially supporting a new dependency in the Crimea.

Will he simply figure in-for-a-penny-in-for-a-pound and order his troops surrounding Ukrainian military bases to render a final ultimatum of surrender to the Ukrainian military they have placed under siege, or suffer the consequences? One of the bases has already experienced a violently explosive event, where a Ukrainian military officer was killed. Are the others to suffer the same fate? And what then?

Armed Russian forces arrest Ukrainian army officers during an operation in Simferopol, after the crisis moves from from political to military action between the two countries, after one Ukrainian serviceman has been shot dead

Crimean Prime Minister Sergei Aksyonov's government announced that Russian troops are prepared to halt their siege of Ukrainian military bases to render opportunity to those within to either choose to switch sides or to walk away without their weapons. Kyiv would prefer that provisions such as food and water be permitted to go to the Ukrainian military to enable them to withstand the conditions inside until they receive further orders to either resist the Russian surrender orders, or to submit to them.

The travesty that Sunday's referendum represented was simply compounded with the annexation of Crimea into Russia's borders. The Russian propaganda labelling the Ukrainian government and foreign governments supporting it as fascists was welcomed and embraced by the majority of Crimeans. Those who chose to honour their allegiance to Ukraine were wary of the Crimean 'civil defence units' -- brutish men with Russian accents and rubles to spend, menacing the dissenters.

Canada, throughout all of this, has an intimation perhaps of what may lie ahead in the disputes for territory in the Canadian far North. The Arctic territories in which Norway, the United States, Canada, Russia and Denmark all have a stake, and where the natural resources lying deep under the ocean floor have such compelling attraction for future mining opportunities led Russia to challenge Canada's claims of sovereignty.