Meanwhile in the UK...raine

Can we just call the Ukraine the UKr for now? It's a tiresome word lately.

In any case, you might have awoken this morning to this headline...

That's right, as I suggested yesterday and the day before, "Putin may get exactly what he wants without firing a shot, in fact he's nearly sitting back and being begged. The local parliament in Crimea voted overnight unanimously to join Russia and fall under Moscow's governance, they set a referendum for 10-days in the area which is made up of about 9 of 10 ethnic Russians. As Kerry stumbles from one country to the next trying to figure out the next step, it may have just been taken.

The vice premier of Crimea, home to Russia's Black Sea military base in Sevastopol, said a referendum on the status would take place on March 16. He said all state property would be "nationalized", the Russian ruble could be adopted and Ukrainian troops would be treated as occupiers and be forced to surrender or leave. Russian stocks fell and the ruble weakened further after the news. Moody's ratings agency said the stand-off was negative for Russia's sovereign creditworthiness.

What is Crimea anyway and why is the Ukraine, I mean UKr so important and Crimea so important?

Here's a map...

 See the red arrow pointing at a peninsula? That's Crimea, just above it is Sevastopol which is a port that is leased by the Russians much the same way the US leases Guantanamo from Cuba. In fact, the Russian Black Sea fleet has been based in Sevastopol for 200 years, Putin is NOT going to lose the strategic Black Sea port on his watch.

Now it seems Crimea which is seeing local militias back up Russian troops who most definitely have boots on the ground, is going to default over to Russia, what does the UKr do to try to maintain its borders over a break away region? Well that's the question, however the bigger question is what happens in Eastern UKr, see the capital, Kiev in the purple box? Eastern UKr is on the other side of the river and it has a vast majority of ethnic Russians as well, so this isn't just about a peninsula, it's about more than half the country potentially falling in to Putin's hands. Last night's shocking allegation that the Maidan coalition in power was behind the sniper attacks that they used to oust the former leader may be devastating to a new coalition that hasn't solidified support, hasn't made any reforms and thus does not yet have the loyalty of the people.

The US response is building quickly, President Barack Obama took steps to punish those involved in threatening the sovereignty and territorial integrity of UKr, ordering the freezing of their U.S. assets and a ban on travel into the United States; this is said to be a first step that could escalate if the situation deteriorated more, but sanctions from the EU do not look forth coming, in fact France so far has refused to scrap a deal to sell Russia warships and quite frankly considering the EU gets a lot of natural gas from Russia, they are not keen on sanctions lest it be a very cold winter.

In addition, we now know that the US naval ship headed up the Black Sea reported yesterday is the USS Truxton, a guided missile destroyer. Of course this under the guise of a "long planned exercise", not a show of force.

In another overnight development, the Crimean port city of Mirny saw an act of sabotage against a Ukrainian warship, around midnight an explosion that is being blamed on the Russians sunk a warship blocking the channel to the harbor of the Ukrainian naval base at Mirny.

The vote undertaken with unanimous approval of the Crimean Parliament which Kiev refuses to recognize is said to not have been possible without the approval of Putin first, it seems while we were all transfixed on the US beating the Russians at the Olympics in hockey, Putin was planning his revenge.

This is apparently VERY far from over, especially when Eastern Ukraine suddenly follows in the footsteps of Crimea.