We can argue legality all day long. But its also true no one in Ukraine voted for the restored 2006 Constitution.
The fact of the matter is the issue now is no longer whether Russia’s actions violate international law. The real issue is the Russian people in Crimea don’t want to be under Ukraine.
And using violence to overturn their expressed decision to join Russia would not serve any one’s interests. For Ukraine, joining the West should be far more important than insisting Crimeans submit to its will.
Doing what is right is more important than doing what is legal and its not about appeasing Putin. Its about respecting the wish of a fraternal people and breaking up with them as quickly as possible.
No country wants to lose part of itself under any circumstances and I can understand how Ukraine is feeling. But taking on Russia militarily would be political suicide. As I stressed before better a good civil divorce than a bad civil war.
With Crimea out of Ukraine, Ukraine now the chance to begin afresh and look forward to the future and not to the past. It should take full advantage of it.
With Obama your preferred outcome is all but assured (if your hope that emboldened Putin doesn’t invade the rest of Ukraine is true).
That however does not bode well for the future (as history shows).
The best way to handle this is to put Putin back in his USSR box with economic and political isolation until the Russian people had enough and turn on him like what happened to his gangster puppet in Ukraine.
Anything less than that is a defeat that we will pay for and the next generation will fault us on.