Ukraine: what will happen now?

Events in Crimea have the potential to turn Ukraine into Europe's worst security nightmare since the revolutions of 1989

• The Guardian

Pro-Russian activists at a rally in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine. Photograph: Alexander Khudoteply/AFP/Getty Images

In his 14 years in power after a career as a KGB officer grieving the loss of the Soviet empire, Vladimir Putin has launched three wars against Russia's neighbours and territories formerly under the Kremlin's domination.
As a newly appointed prime minister in 1999, before becoming president on New Year's Day 2000, he launched his career with a war in Chechnya, brutally suppressing an armed insurrection against Moscow's rule in the north Caucasus and razing the provincial capital, Grozny.
In 2008, he ordered a blitzkrieg against Georgia, partitioning the country in five days. He remains in control of 20% of Russia's Black Sea neighbour: the territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
The Russian military also controls a slice of Moldova known as Transnistria in a frozen conflict dating from the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In the Crimea and the Ukraine, however, in the event of full-scale war, Putin has opted for a game-changer with the potential to be Europe's worst security nightmare since the revolutions of 1989 and the bloodiest since Slobodan Milosevic's attempts to wrest control of former Yugoslavia resulted in four lost wars, more than 100,000 dead, and spawned seven new countries in the Balkans.
Ukraine is a pivotal country on the EU's eastern and Russia's south-western borders. Territorially it is bigger than France. Its population is greater than Poland or Spain at 46 million. It has fighting forces and is well armed. Ukraine was the Soviet Union's arms-manufacturing base, it remains in the top league of global arms exporters. And although its military is no match for Russia's, its fighting forces will be able to inflict a lot of damage if forced to defend their country.......................................................

more see:  http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/02/ukraine-what-will-happen-crimea-europe-west