Russia is spending a lot on defending Crimea:
Even with the most superficial calculation, it turns out that in 2014–2018 Russia will spend nearly 350 billion roubles (almost USD 7 billion) on defence and security in Crimea. This figure does not include the daily expenses for the maintenance of military troops (20–25 thousand people) and other siloviki, their equipment (from armoured cars to boats), the ongoing modernisation of the RT-70 radio telescope in Yevpatoria for military purposes, investments in other military infrastructure, public procurement orders in Crimean factories, etc.
And that's separate from a lot of civilian spending to buy the loyalty of the people in Crimea.
The author wonders whether the effort is to make Crimea a shield of Russia or a launching point for projecting power, but at the heart of it is this:
The presence of a military base in the Crimea is not essential for pressurising neighbours. Neither is it a sine qua non for using force anywhere in the Mediterranean. But it is important for the Kremlin to demonstrate to the whole world that the annexed peninsula is vitally important for Russia.
Taking it further, as I've argued, it might be that the Syria intervention served to justify the capture of Crimea, despite the fact that a Russian shield for Russia in the eastern Mediterranean Sea is pointless and doomed to be destroyed by the NATO Mediterranean naval forces that otherwise have no enemy to fight.
And even further, despite the problem of Russia taking Crimea from Ukraine in violation of agreements and international law, it may be that Russia's focus on building up military forces on Crimea is actually relieving pressure on the Baltic NATO states, Poland, and the Nordic states.
Russia has limited money for defense--especially in a post-2014 sanctions world along with lower energy prices--and so money spent in Crimea can't be spent in the northwest direction.
Really, a NATO offensive into Russia's Black Sea flank is unlikely given how Islamist Turkey is getting as it makes itself unworthy of being a NATO member (and thinks it doesn't need NATO anyway, as it forges a new Ottoman sphere of influence in its old imperial haunts.
But Russian-occupied Crimea does make northeast NATO safer both by inspiring NATO defense efforts and by absorbing Russian defense spending.
