I posted several articles about the Ukrainian revolution on FR:
Current events: Ukraine
Escalation in Ukraine
Address to Owners of Weapons (Ukraine)
Sustaining Ukraine's breakthrough: EU expertise and markets are essential [Soros]
Ukrainian Major Archbishop appeals for solidarity and warns the danger of civil war is not over
Alarm in Ukraine as Putin Puts Russian Troops on Alert
A Jewel in Two Crowns [Soviet Sevastopol]
NATO warns Russia to cease and desist in Ukraine
You don't need to educate me or the regular readers of my series about what happened. Of course it was a violent revolution driven by a well-organized Ukrainian nationalist movement. Well done.
you wait it out until the next election when you vote for the other guy
Right, ordinarily. Apparently enough people got p_ssed off by the Yanuk government not to do so. Government lost the consent of enough people, who were sufficiently passionate about overthrowing it. It is not the norm, -- no one says it is.
Who's next to be deposed in this way?
You list some attractive candidates.
existing 1997 agreement between Russia and Ukraine allows Moscow to keep up to 25,000 Black Sea Fleet troops in the peninsula
In Sevastopol. Not in Simferopol and not for the purposes of occupying local seats of government.
Back to your larger red-and-blue point. Yes, Ukraine is demographically divided country. It may very well be that the passionate, pro-European West might be unable to satisfy the Sovietism of the inert but still quite numerous East. So, what Putin should have done is to stay our militarily and let the situation develop in Ukraine as a matter internal to Ukraine. He, being a Soviet thug by mentality and training, foreclosed on the democratic option.
“You don’t need to educate me”
Far from me the idea if doing that.
We know each other for quite a while now, and I have the utmost respect for your intellectual qualites and multiple competences.
Allow me to sum it up in a non-partisan, non-emotional, realpolitics fashion:
“Vent my folly!” - William Shakespeare
After the fall of Soviet Union, US and NATO believed that it owned the world and acted accordingly, in a ruthless way; they destabilized the whole planet Earth through their interventions.
And here they stumbled upon a tough bone they can’t chew at - V.Putin. They can’t make war to him - he has nukes. They can’t use the gimmick UN against him, he has veto power. They can’t blackmail him, he keeps Europe by its energy needs’ balls. They can’t ruin him, Russia’s soil being filthy rich, with only 10% of this richness exploited. Wait until Putin industrialises Siberia. Besides , he’s got on his side the rising economy stars India and China.
Regards
Daisy