Crimean War, redux? Back in the 1850s the Crimea served as a proxy battleground for the West and Russia. Apparently that war was started by a drunken brawl at between Russian and French monks in Jerusalem at Christmas time over who got to place the star on the Nativity. Good a reason as any for a bloody and pointless war, don't you think? Seems like a little more is at stake here, but between this and Syria, I think we're right in the wheelhouse for a West-Russia conflict once again. Sad.
Maybe, maybe not. From what I've read, the Crimean parliament denies a formal discussion of secession. The former president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, also seems to think that Putin is going to try and establish a Russian corridor by sending troops down the river that separates Crimea from the rest of Ukraine, sort of like what happened in South Ossetia. Could it be the rise of Soviet Union II?