re: #59 Testy Toad T

I’m not sure the goal wasn’t to provoke a reaction that won’t come, and that Putin has overstepped his good sense. Their position certainly gets militarily stronger with each passing day, but perhaps weaker in terms of secondary and tertiary damage. Frankly, I agree with someone downstairs. Their best case is a free-ish lease on Sevastapol for time immemorial. They need some good PR of saving helpless babushkas from the big bad scary Ukranians so they can patter around the Crimea until elections, then wander home without a shot being fired.

I seem to recall that one of the first thing the new Ukrainian government did was to reaffirm Russia’s claim to the Naval base so I don’t think that’s a motivating factor. I think it was even very likely that upcoming election would create semi-autonomous regions in areas with Russian heritage. This makes me think Russia may be moving to take the whole country, Their regional interests were already pretty safe.