Originally Posted by zako85
Why does this matter at all? Does anyone doubt that the majority of Crimea population are Russians? Moreover, Russia's goal is not formal recognition or a demonstration of the most legal and democratic way of parting a chunk of land from the other country. They don't care about those niceties. Russia wants to show to the world that they can do what they want, and frankly they have already won. The United States has no real levers to influence Russia as there is insignificant amount of trade with them, while Europe depends on the Russian energy and Russian oligarchs stash their stolen billions in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. Also, Russia probably wants to create another frozen conflict at their borders (just another in a line of many others like Transnistria, Karabakh, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, etc). Once they have a frozen conflict, it will be a lever to use against the countries that get out of the line. This maybe also a warning to Ukraine. I don't exclude the possibility that later Russia could take a bolder move and try to split the eastern provinces from mainland Ukraine as well. All ingredients for that are already in place.