“I am ashamed,” the Russian said, before letting out the longest and most elaborate profanity I have ever heard. We were standing in the warm Crimean sunshine on Sunday, next to a Ukrainian military base in Perevalnoe, outside Simferopol, the regional capital, surrounded by soldiers, screaming protestors, and television crews. The swearing Russian was a journalist from Moscow, who had just got a tongue-lashing from his editor for calling the Russian soldiers Russian soldiers. “He said we have to refer to them as ‘a friendly volunteer self-defense force,’ ” the journalist bellowed. “Is that what they look like to you?” He crowned the question with another string of swears.