Sean Mirrsen, Interesting what would you say if month ago I wrote here that Russia will move in and annex Crimea
I'd say... hmm. I can't remember what exactly was happening a month ago. And honestly, I wasn't paying all that much attention to it. Not to mention that I probably wasn't present in this thread at the time, but anyway. If that were before we started getting the newsbits about a full-blown Molotov-flinging police-burning riot going on, I'd say it was unlikely... but probably not impossible. Russia would have had a lot to gain by moving in on Crimea, strategically, and with a large proportion of people there strongly associating with Russia (even if not, by polls - which I had no idea of at the time - quite eager to outright merge into it) I'd say full-on military incursion would have been remotely possible, but not probable. I would likely have said that if anything of the kind were attempted, it would have been done through the people.
Which, in retrospect, is probably what was going to happen. But then the whole civil war thing broke out (again, as reported - no idea what actually happened), and with the "people's choice" high up enough in the air for a passing ICBM to snag on it, Russia made the move. If you asked me at that time, when our TVs were showing armed people in the streets and fire raining on police officers, with reports of widespread unrest, I would likely have said that
an intervention was inevitable; that it was going to be either a Europe/US-empowered Ukraine, or the nearby and present military forces of Russia (though I really was only aware of Sevastopol at the time... and I kinda was under the impression that it was a
port and a
fort - not a
naval base), and I think that given both the vested interest, and their immediate availability,
and the matter of the whole thing being about the region being fed up with Ukrainian government, I think the result would have, in retrospect, been obvious.
...
I like reverse-introspective like that. Really makes the brain move.