Russia really doesn't care if the United Nations Security Council drafts resolutions:
Russia vetoed a U.N. resolution declaring Sunday's referendum on the future of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula illegal, and close ally China abstained, underlining Moscow's international isolation.
Thirteen voted for our resolution, China abstained, and Russia cast their veto. So that was fun. Useful, mind you, just to establish that nobody but Russia seems to believe ethnic Russians in Crimea need rescuing from the Dread Ukrainian Death Squads that Moscow has dreamed up.
In the real world, Russia took a step over the line to hit a Ukrainian natural gas station on the Sea of Azov:
Russian forces backed by helicopter gunships and armored vehicles Saturday took control of a village near the border with Crimea on the eve of a referendum on whether the region should seek annexation by Moscow, Ukrainian officials said.
The action in Strilkove appeared to be the first move outside Crimea[.]
It is unclear if the Russians retreated in the face of a Ukrainian counter-deployment.
Call it a shot across the bow and a blatant warning about Russian control of Ukraine's natural gas supply.
If I was Putin--other than looking better shirtless--I'd want to be able to give up something and still hold everything I want. If that is the case, stepping over the borders of Crimea might be the way to keep Crimea.
With a new incident in the city of Kharkov (as the above article reports) on top of the killing in the city of Donetsk--both in eastern Ukraine--a small Russian deployment that moves just into those cities to "protect ethnic Russians" for the duration of the Crimea crisis might be just the thing.
Recent Russian exercises near eastern Ukraine purported to be preparations for a general invasion would be enough for this purpose.
It has the advantage of not invading all of Ukraine's east (which is beyond the capabilities of the Russian army), puts Russian troops in small but important pieces of territory close to Russia (which lets the troops drive in on one tank of fuel, avoiding embarrassments of looking not ready for prime time), and provides the optics of grateful ethnic Russians (many of whom will be actual Russians whipping up the crowds to praise Mother Russia).
With just ordinary amounts of luck, John Kerry will insist to Ukraine that they not respond to this "provocation" leaving Lavrov to do his magic on Kerry to "resolve" the issue by Russia pulling out of Ukrainian territory outside of Crimea while everyone just gets used to Crimea within Russia.
Then Russia copes with whatever sanctions are applied and prepares for a future day when they can eat another part of Ukraine.
I'm still hoping we can exploit Russian fears of military failure to make this a crisis about Sevastopol and not Crimea.
UPDATE: The Russians appear to be in control of Strilkovye:
[As] of the evening of March 15 it appeared from reports that the Russian troops were still at Strilkove and might have been reinforced during the course of the day.
So Russia has officially invaded Ukraine. At least that is clear.
