Ukraine's leaders are more focused on retaining eastern Ukraine:
Ukraine's acting President Oleksandr Turchynov said his heavily outnumbered army would never try to seize back the Black Sea peninsula from Russian troops who made their land grab days after the February 22 ouster in Kiev of pro-Kremlin leader Viktor Yanukovych.
"We cannot launch a military operation in Crimea, as we would expose the eastern border and Ukraine would not be protected," Turchynov said in an interview with AFP.
With Ukraine's army so poorly deployed (because of using Cold War bases focused on reinforcing an invasion of NATO to the west), I'm not sure how effective resistance could be without trying to free Crimea.
Nor has Ukraine's mobilization done much to make it seem as if Ukraine could actually repel a Russian invasion of the east.
If Ukraine's armed forces were in decent shape and intact, Ukraine could have mounted an offensive into Crimea against the limited and light Russian forces already there.
While doing that, Ukraine would have had enough combat power to resist if not defeat a Russian invasion of the east while counting on pro-Ukrainian resistance in conquered areas to harass the Russians while the army retreated west to the Dnieper River and counting on the financial cost and strain on Russia's armed forces to make the invasion of the east seem like a bad idea.
Ukraine might also have seized the Transdniester region between Ukraine and Romania that Russia controls.
Ukraine might then have bargained a sale of Sevastopol to the Russians and the evacuation of Transdniester in exchange for Russia evacuating eastern Ukraine.
But Ukraine can't fight for Crimea. Obviously, even if the West wanted to fight over Crimea (and I wouldn't--you've read nothing like that here), we could not do it absent a Ukrainian determination to do the job. So Crimea is going to be lost.
The question is how long is it lost? I think Ukraine would bolster its claims to Crimea by denying Russia a cheap victory. Ukraine may not be able to counter-attack in to Crimea, but Ukraine could attempt to defend their toe holds in Crimea:
The Russian total includes non-ground forces in Sevastopol garrison but does not include a similar amount of militias and phantom Russian troops (special forces and mercenaries) with the militias. I'd call it closer to 30,000.
The Ukrainian total is less than the 20,000 I'd read earlier. Whether that reflects better information or attrition as defenders desert or surrender, I do not know.
There isn't much time before Russia will openly move to use their military to secure Crimea. Once the March 16th referendum is held, it will probably be a matter of hours rather than days before the Russians move. The article says Russia's parliament won't consider legislation until March 21st to do this, but would Russia really want to wait five days? Although there is no reason that Russia couldn't move between those days to "protect" ethnic Russians from "reprisals" over the vote.
Ukraine needs to bolster their defenses in those bases to make at least a show of armed resistance. If they haven't dug in, they need to dig defenses. They need to scrounge up as many weapons as possible and distribute ammunition. And get the video feeds ready to show they are resisting. If Ukraine can use helicopters or aircraft to land or drop supplies to those garrisons before March 16th, they should do it. I don't know if Russia would be willing to shoot down aircraft before the referendum.
These troops don't need to fight to the death. That would be unreasonable to ask of support personnel. Although the Ukrainian marines (naval infantry) at Feodosiya should be expected to offer a stout resistance.
All Ukraine can do is bolster a story of heroic resistance against overwhelming power, and set the stage for ultimate liberation at some point in the future.
We will have a bigger role then, in exacting a price for Russia's act of aggression and reassuring Ukrainians and others that our help is worth something--as long as we are expected to help rather than do the entire job of resisting Russia.
UPDATE: A timely article:
Across Crimea, unidentified troops believed to be Russian have seized Ukrainian military bases with little or no resistance. Several bases have so far refused to surrender, but nor are they showing any willingness to fight if pushed to.
The base in question (an anti-aircraft unit at Yevpatoriya, which I think is at the first blue dot west of Simferopol on the above map) seems prepared to defend themselves but seem to accept that a professional attempt to storm the base would be futile.
Other bases apparently have fallen already, which would address at least some of the numbers difference between what I read was in Crimea and what is there now.
