It’s a long time since you could call Russia for a democracy, it has become a brutal police state with Putins youth organization kind of acting like SA did in per-second world war Germany.
As the Russian puppet was disposed in Ukraine, the one million man Russian army dream was crushed, the only way Russia will be able to have a standing one million man army is if the stagnated Russian economy would get new economic growth by adding new potential areas to the Russian sphere of interest either by close co-operation with the former USSR states or by occupy land belonging to it’s neighbour countries. The Crimea is a such area, which has riches and potential to grow economically, which would fill the Russian state coffins.
Russia invaded the Crimea with the claim to protect people there, but at the same time they have destabilized Crimea and seen to that pro-Russian ultra right wing has stormed government buildings and raising the Russian flag instead of the Ukrainian one. They also seen to that the local government will hastily hold and election to vote if Crimea should belong to Russia, you can already guess the “vote of the people” by reading the ballot which has two options:
- Crimea should become part of Russia
- Crimea should become independent and then become a part of Russia
As you see, no option to say no and of course Russia will with love take over Crimea, this will of course not mean it will become better for the population, they will have to work hard to please the new masters and they will not gain anything from the profit that the Russian state and Putin and his friends will be collecting. The Ukrainians and Ukrainian Tatars will have an extremely bad time if they stay in their ancestral lands, they will not be second grade citizens (that is what the Crimea Russians will be), but “dogs” kicked by those who are already beaten.
If Russia gets hold of Crimea without the EU does anything about it more than sanctions, will just lead to that other neighbouring countries will be loosing territory in the name of protecting Russians. The only way to stop Russia would cost EU quite a lot, mainly to give Turkey full membership if they lend out troops to stabilize Crimea, at the same time EU has to grant full membership to Ukraine without any restrictions and giving the Crimea Russians the option to be slaves in Russia or be able to get jobs in EU. EU would need to send own troops to and of course supply the Ukrainian defence forces with modern weapons.
Sure Russia would threat with raising the price of gas, but Russia ain’t the only country able to supply EU with the gas needed, both Scotland and Norway could supply gas, also using the BTE pipeline, would fast destroy the Russian economy as without selling gas and oil the Russian state would fast run of money.
One bad thing that could happen if EU wouldn’t act is that the The Finns Party (Finnish: Perussuomalaiset) could become a stronger force in Finland and make people want to retake Karelia, with the same excuses as Russia uses in Crimea, to protect Finns/Karelians and Finnish interests and move in the more technological Finnish Army into Karelia which also would be more prepared to die for liberating Karelia from the Russian occupation. This time the Finns will not stand alone, they would get support from other right wing lead EU countries and others bound by agreeing on defending each other. If things goes this far, we will see world war three in Europe and with mad man like Putin, we will see nuclear weapons used.
A peaceful solution would be the best, Russia forgets its’ dream of a standing one million man army and leaves Crimea, but sadly Russia is lead by Putin and corrupted friends and of course Putins Hitlerjunge who will be beating up all non-Russians in Russia and do murder if someone tells the truth.
According to Russian sources there was less than 50% who voted in the rigged election held in Crimea with only ~15% of the population voted for joining with Russia. Of course the Russian troops saw to that the numbers reported in agreed on the numbers set by Putin before the election.