I’d becareful speaking in terms of “ethnicities.” As a matter of fact, there were ethnic Russians, Ukrainians, even ethnic arabs and Jews who took part in the Maidan. Ukraine is a far more diverse country than the media lets on. It is more accurate to say that most Ukrainians, of whatever ethnicity, support a united Ukraine, even in the East and South, as polls have shown. These people who don’t you will likely find either at the bottom of society, or are communists and other weirdos, who can be bought or persuaded to support the Kremlin by Russian GRU. The Kremlin has likely planned this operation for years, by the way, with lots of agents in place they planned to activate in the event that Ukraine shook off their hold and gravitated to the west.
Points taken, and I think your broader comments are probably quite accurate.
It is my guess that Russia is going to have more trouble than people think at even keeping the Crimea quiet - at least without severe repression. Once things settle down and people have trouble converting currency, getting daily goods, acquiring supplies for their businesses, withdrawing money from the bank, etc, we may see a lot of anti Russian activity that will force Putin to devote resources just to keep that one area pacified.
“The Kremlin has likely planned this operation for years, by the way, with lots of agents in place”
Being a former Soviet State, I have no doubt at all that Ukraine is riddled with people willing to give, or sell, info to the Russians. Especially the mafias.
That said, the US even has a “plan” for the invasion of Canada, should that ever become needed.
That Russia had a plan to move on Crimea should anything happen in Ukraine shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, given its strategic importance.
It wasn’t until the US gave Putin the OPPORTUNITY to move on Crimea, that he did. Russian intelligence isn’t stupid, they knew this was coming, and EXACTLY who was behind it.
That Putin is now using that to his advantage shouldn’t surprise anyone, either.
Just a short reply; I didn’t use the word ethnicity in my post and that was deliberate. I am not certain that ethnicity is the major fault line in Ukraine - rather a more conscious choice of russiophilia or occidentophilia. Of course history, language, customs etc make up a large part of the reasons behind the choice, but one cannot put equaility between russian speakers and russophiles (eg Julia Tymoshenko).
As to your question, I’m certain that the government supporters are most in favour of quik election. An election would give the new president a democratic mandate, and given that Crimea is “out of bounds” a win for the pro-West candidates is all but assured.