I think they were hoping for ethnic Ukrainains actually oppressing or attacking Ethnic Russians - something that has signally failed to happen. This wrong-footed the Russian propaganda campaign badly, making it laughable.
Problem is that it may not make any difference, if the Russian gov’t feels that it can weather the storm of outrage and simply take what it wants anyway.
Problem is, can the Russian economy survive? It was already in trouble even without this.
In one sense, Russia is in a very strong position - no-one seriously considers challenging the Russian military head-on, not Ukraine, not NATO, not the US going alone, no-one.
In another sense, Russia is in a very weak position - their aggression is naked for all to see and no-one seriously believes their propaganda (some Internet commentators aside! :D), their economy is already in trouble, and current events are making it far worse; they have squandered the political capital they have painstakingly assembled over the past few years, capped with the Olympics; even without official sanctions, their stability has been called into question and investors are leaving in droves.
What happens next is the question - will Russian strength or Russian weakness prove more significant in the long run?
My guess (and it is only a guess) is that Putin seriously underestimated the reaction. My guess is he assumed that it would be no more than what happened over Georgia.
Some were even clever enough to defect before a single shot was fired.
More likely scenario is that they were smart enough not to pick a fight they could not possibly win.
Crimea is now being called an autonomous region of the Ukraine with it’s own local gov’t. A local referendum will be held very soon and, I’m guessing, they’ll vote to remain “autonomous of Ukraine”.
Sure, I’ll find a nice convenient cite that the CIA funded opposition to a Putin-friendly President. I’m sure there’s going to be plenty in mainstream, corporporate/caplitalist media becasue it obv. follows the prescribed narratives.
Or, you could consider the last 50 years of suppression of democracy by the Beacon of Democracy right across south and central America, MENA and chunks of Asia.
Interesting but I would not rush to conclusions that the man is crazy. He’s under a tremendous amount of pressure right now with the focus of the world on him and what he says or does next. He may not have slept. He may be exhausted. He may be drunk.
Lots of people speak flawless Russian in Crimea. What is your point? Flawless Russian does not make them Russian Federation soldiers. When the right wingers overthrew the government its coming out that many of the special police that were defending the pro-Russian Ukrainian president/government were the unmarked parramilitary that arrived in Crimea that started the move for independence.
An autonomous independent Crimea is being reported as a done deal with many cities siding with the break away from Ukraine.
The US trades $40 billion a year with Russia, Europe $480 billion. Europe has shown no interest in sanctions so not only will ours not work as allies closer to the actual threat we should be following Europe’s lead anyway. We have no business reminding Europe about the threat of appeasement, and their actions indicate to me this conflict looks entirely different over there.
They could have marched up unarmed and without flags of any kind. Yet, they chose not to.
My speculation is that in absence of an elected Ukrainian gov’t, combined with the fact that the Ukrainian military appears to be demonstrating nostalgia and solidarity with the Russian military through defections and displays like this, Putin is absolutely correct in assuming that much of Ukraine would hand itself over readily to Russian control.
