Oh, brother!

The most we could do would be to arm/equip them, and that wouldn't exactly serve to de-escalate the situation.

kind of response. Best bet is to guarantee that neither NATO nor Russian troops set foot inside Ukraine.

NATO might be able to make the guarantee for NATO, but it could hardly make it for Russia without the implicit threat of force.

Russia already made the promise. Then it said that since there's no legitimate government, none of the promises can be valid. So they could move into the Crimea without breaking their promise. After all, it wasn't being governed by a legitimate government.

Of course, that means Donechchina isn't governed by a legitimate government. Nor is the Lvivshchina, for that matter.

It's really the same premise that Israel uses for the West Bank--there's no legitimate state there, so occupying it doesn't fall under the usual rules for occupation.

However, it also means--if you want to assume that this has to be carried through logically--that there is no valid, currently binding agreement under which the Russians could have military bases in the Crimea.

Makes Russia a bit tetchy when Ukraine stops admitting Russian nationals and turns them back at the border. On the one hand, the border police have some authority there; on the other hand, there's no authority vested in the border police. A further implication is there's no one for Russia to complain to, either. Hard to be consistent.


It's the basis for Aksenov declaring that all of the Ukrainian military assets on Crimean soil are under his control as the new commander of the Crimean military, and that he's in his rights to have taken steps (with allies) to block having any Ukrainian naval ships from leaving Crimean waters. They're his. Same for energy installations. They're also under his direct control. Hospitals? Yup. It's less the autonomous republic of Crimea that's being formed and more the autocratic state of Aksenovia.