It should have been handled way back in 1992, like the Czechs and Slovaks did.
Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine in the first place, only a drunken Khrushchev trying to make nice with the Ukrainians he so brutally persecuted under Stalin. Of course it was more of a symbolic gesture back in the days of the Soviet Union...but now the chickens have come home to roost.
You are probably right.
Still, this should have been handled through a proper political process and not through multi levels of thuggery. If the Russians wanted merely to have the Russian regions re-attached then they could have worked with the locals in the Ukraine to that limited end. Instead they have been attempting to control the Ukraine as a whole, using the local Russians as their instruments.