Ukraine Responds

Ukraine is mobilizing reserves and NATO will meet to discuss Russian invasion.

And Russian troops in Crimea have surrounded a Ukrainian base there. It can't be a large base.

According to RFE/RL live blog this morning.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, our president skipped a national security meeting.

What the heck, he has the whole series.

UPDATE: Regarding the base, the Ukrainians moved an infantry fighting vehicle tot he gate--I believe a BMP-2--and not a "tank" as it notes.

And the Ukrainians are providing lovely target practice by lining up at the gate. Do they expect war or a mob to rush the gate?

UPDATE: More here.

The surrounded base noted above is a Navy base south of Simferopol, which is a key road intersection from both the north and the east that lies north of Sevastopol.

The Russians have also blocked the Ukrainian marine base at Feodosiya, in eastern Crimea.

That harms my notional Ukrainian military response that calls for that battalion to delay Russian forces crossing the Kerch Strait in occupy the region.

If the Ukrainians are holding back from acting because they worry they will give Putin a pretext to escalate to full violent invasion instead of the creeping invasion, they are mistaken. Putin will happily occupy the region without fighting if he can. But if Putin needs a pretext to go into shooting mode, he's fully capable of manufacturing a pretext.

Heck, Putin will probably claim NATO forces were detected in Ukraine.

I don't assume Ukraine would be crushed by Russia. Russia had trouble handling Georgia. And Russia doesn't have that many good troops. And a very big country. Ukraine's military isn't as good, but it defends its soil--a much smaller region than Russia's military has responsibility for--and might be able to put up a good fight as long as Russia can maintain an offensive. And moving heavy forces to Crimea where so far Russian forces have to be lighter naval infantry and paratroopers flown in as reinforcements would give the Ukrainians a local advantage for a while.

For what it's worth, here's my Russian invasion scenario, that seems to be playing out in a subliminal way, and my Ukrainian response.

But Ukraine probably needs time to get their army in shape to move. And I'm sure Ukraine is under tremendous pressure to refrain from shooting first notwithstanding the ongoing Russian subliminal invasion of Crimea and the staged pro-Russian rallies in eastern Ukraine (pro-Russian crowds showed up for pay at one city--and then all left when the work day was over--and I'm sure Russian agents are involved).

UPDATE: Pucker factor redlining. Russian media reporting "mass resignations" of Ukrainian military in Crimea. Via the live blog. Which to me signals that Russia will claim a security vacuum that requires Russian troops to fill in order to protect civilians and their naval base.

If Russia is ready to invade this quickly after the crisis broke, I have to ask how long have the Russians been preparing? They simply aren't capable of starting a war of this scale at a moment's notice. We couldn't get a platoon to Benghazi in 7 hours. Russia can't put 100,000 troops in motion without a lot of preparation.

Were Sochi Olympics security preparations just a massive smoke screen to conceal the purpose of increased readiness of Russian military forces for this?

UPDATE: I tend to assume that the Ukrainian military is reliable even if it isn't ready for war. But I don't know that. If Ukrainian leaders can't trust their military to obey orders, that complicates any defense plans, to say the least.

UPDATE: Ukraine has options if Russia grabs Crimea, that could supplement our efforts to make Putin pay a price for his glorious empire rebuilding. It seems that Crimea needs energy and food imports from Ukraine. And a substantial minority of people there are not Russian and don't want to be in Russia.

UPDATE: Russians digging trenches at Armyansk to block potential Ukrainian counter-offensive through the isthmus into Crimea.