No one expects Russia to cede control of the Crimean Peninsula. No one in Russia, not the people nor its government, wants to give it up at this point. It's too much a point of national pride for them now.
And I fully expect, the next time Russia takes a slice of some other defenseless neighbor, to hear the same excuses. Or when China takes the Spratly Islands . . . I will be the one accused of being the warmonger. Par for the course.
Not to mention the people there are OK with it.
No one expected the Soviet Bloc to collapse until Reagan came up with a brilliant strategy for the Cold War. It was “We win, they lose”.