[caveat emptor]

That small coastline Ukraine will have on the Black Sea....is it also majority ethnic Russian?

[Vigilanteman]

Your map and my map in post #26 are comparing two different animals. Yours is the percentage of ethnic Russians (much smaller) where as mine was the percentage of voters who backed the Russian favored candidate in the last election.

Yours show Crimea as the only region in Russia which is clearly majority Russian. If it needs a land bridge to link it to Russia, the Kerch straight to the east is the most logical connection. However, the only natural land bridge is the region marked 14.1% ethnic Russian. If you took that region south of the Dnieper River and extended the line from the river flow to the point where it turns north at a 45 degree angle or so, then you'd take in a substantial part of the two provinces with close to a 40% Russian ethnicity.

Not ideal, to be sure, but probably better than the alternatives.