Why do people keep bringing up The Crimea. The Crimea has belonged to Russia for 250 years. Russia fought the Ottoman Empire and the British to keep the Crimea. Russia was not going to allow the Crimea to fall into unfriendly hands. No freakin way, Russia largest naval base is located there. The Crimea is vital to Russian security. Only neocon fools would think Russia would allow a NATO friendly Ukraine to take over the Crimea.
Yeah, that's kind of the difficulty with the whole thing. No, we don't want one country taking part of another country by force. But the truth is that the Crimea was historically a part of Russian, the people were overwhelming Russian, not Ukrainian, and wanted to be part of Russia. So the principles of national sovereignty and self-determination collided.
We need to get over that one in a way that looks reasonable.