I think the above is mostly the way people here feel...
But there is always the human element involved.
While geopolitical strategists debate, and heads of nations plot, real people end up bleeding and dying. And for what? Maybe some of the folks in these "breakaway republics" ignorantly think life under the Russians will be better (and, when you think about it, at least for Abkhazia, all those fat-cat nouveau riche Russians sunning themselves at their Black Sea villas and spending their rubles and dollars might even be good for their economy). Maybe we should point out their stupidity at being so duped. But either way, they're the ones who face the prospect of subjogation or annihilation. We can be contented in debating "spheres of influence" because one way or the other, it all means little or nothing to us in the final analysis - after all, it's not our family whose dying over there, as Neville Chamberlain infamously declared "a faraway place of which we know nothing."