It’s all a moot issue now. Crimea is part of Russia forever. The time to stop the theft was when Putin was stealing Crimea at gun point but of course the kenyan did nothing. Now the issue is all hot air bloviating. The Euros can’t wait to drop sanctions and they already would be history had Hillary won.
Not moot.
We can use that as long as we want as an excuse to deny Russia all kinds of things, or as a grounds for sanctions, etc.
What we can’t have at this late date is countries thinking its OK to invade their neighbors. WWII isn’t that long ago, and we went to war over Kuwait (granted, oil was at stake).
China invading anybody has to make everybody nervous.
The perspective I lacked until very recently is that Russia’s economy is roughly the size of NY State. You can’t square that against the infrastructure it would take to launch a major war.
Their Syrian adventure has to be really hurting them economically. If the US gave Russia a secure way out of Syria to stop that bleeding, that’s not insignificant.
Golden Horde> Mongol Khanate> Ottoman Empire Protectorate> Russia> USSR> Ukraine> Russia