The problems started when the author resorted to the national characteristics type of analysis. The Georgian mountain folk with fiery tempers discussion sounds more like it comes out a review of the Hills Have Eyes than an educated article on International Relations. Then the author offers up this list of compatriots who have turned against each other, "the Croats and Serbs, the Union and Confederacy, Iraqi Sunnis and Iraqi Shiites". Next he is going to tell us that the Joker and Batman are great friends who had a falling out or that the French and the English have always sustained a peaceful productive relationship. Then he goes on to act as if this elder statesman of Ukraine had answered his honest question in a defensive manner. In fact I doubt that he was offended by the question as much as the stupidity of the question. Of course Ukraine is not Georgia. Everything Mr. Tarasyuk said is blatantly obvious to anyone with a passing knowledge of the situation. An attack by Russia on Ukraine would be far different than the attack on Georgia was both in the response of the international community and Ukraine's ability to defend itself. The Russians would be fools to attack the Ukrainians. They won't. Instead they will continue with the annual antagonizing over natural gas and trying to meddle in the internal affairs of Ukraine.

I give the author more credit. It is easy to sit back and write about situations after they occur, but I think he does a good job pointing out a hot spot's potential for future trouble.

Would Europe come to the aid of Ukraine militarily if Ukraine were attacked by Russia?

I am not so sure they would but I hope we don't have to find out someday.

I've got an apartment in Feodosia, Ukraine and the author was right about Crimean Ukrainians taking their cues from Russia. All the people I spend time with call themselves Russians and do not consider themselves Ukrainians.

The Ukrainian government does rub salt into old wounds in the area from time to time as well.

The Crimeans act Russian because they are. Stalin moved most of Crimea's residents to Siberia in the 1930's, replacing them with Russians. I think there has been some process started to let original families return, but it hasn't gone quickly.

The modern history of Ukraine is fascinating - how it was split in 1921 after Poland intervened on Ukraine's behalf in a war against Russia, how it became a nation again in 1990 with virtually no political infrastructure, etc.

Inquisitor, you raised an excellent point I think the author completely missed. Russia doesn't have to roll out the tanks when it can use economic measures, such as cutting off natural gas, to undermine the Ukrainian government.

The Crimea has been Russian since the reign of Catherine the Great. She founded the naval base at Sevastopol. In fact, until the 1950's, the Crimea was part of the Russian SSR, when it was ceded to Ukraine for administrative reasons. The ethnic Russian population has no desire to be part of a whole different country.

Spoken like a true Imperialist: once the natives are conquered militarily, that's It! Stop complaining! The history of ethnicity seems to prove that Ethnic Identity, deluded and wrong as it may be, is far stronger than any "borders" of any "nation" formed by conquest , and longer lasting. Most of the world's conflicts are, and have been in the last 100 years or so,mostly a product of this crazy idea that multi-ethnic societies are a great, almost sacred idea, which is of course what conquerors want everyone to think. Give it up! Let's have "Self-Determination"! disigny