While the Maidan Revolution has led to President Viktor Yanukovych's downfall and to early elections planned for May 25, it also means that residents of Crimea, the majority of whom are Russian, will vote that same day in a national referendum on whether to separate from Ukraine and declare independence, as stipulated by the Crimean peninsula's autonomous parliament on Thursday. Simultaneously, we saw the Russian army on Thursday move its forces near the Ukrainian border and Yanukovych finally came out of hiding to talk. It's not surprising that under these tense conditions, the announcement that a new government was appointed in Kiev is only of secondary interest. In general, it seems the story is no longer in Kiev, but in Crimea, where the Russian Navy docks its fleet at Sevastopol harbor, facilitated by a leasing agreement signed by Kiev and Moscow in 2010 and which was extended by 25 years. This international crisis has several possible scenarios -- optimistic (utopian even), which the European Union dreams about, in which Russia and the West cooperate to rehabilitate the Ukrainian economy; and pessimistic, certainly realistic today, in which a second Crimean War could erupt. While Maidan indeed been a source of immense pride for the Ukrainian nationalists, the Russians still have an opportunity to exact revenge. Czar Nikolai lost the Crimean War (1853-1856) to the industrialized British Empire and France, fighting alongside the Ottomans. That war, which was part of the fighting between European powers to take control of territories under the control of the disintegrating Ottoman Empire, had many names: In Russia it became known as the "Eastern War." This name is fitting today as well, if we note the outraged response by eastern Ukrainians to the Maidan uprising, and to the open support they receive from Russia. Like then, the "modern Czar," Vladimir Putin, sees the current conflict surrounding the makeup and future of Ukraine as part of the fight between the European powers (the EU) and Russia. This time, however, the threat is to take control over Ukraine, a central axis point in the Russian dreams of renewing the empire. Putin, encouraged by his gentleman's victory in the Sochi games, already envisions exacting revenge in Nikolai's name. It has already been said that the future is written in the ink of the past. The Ottoman Empire collapsed a long time ago and will not be represented in the Second Crimean War -- although Muslim Turks are in the picture. The Tatars, a Muslim-Turkish people exiled to central Asia by Stalin, have returned to the Crimean peninsula (12 percent of the population) and they have already picked a side in this fight. They also want revenge, on their historic rivals of 500 years ago, the Russians. Moscow has already declared it will not accept its interests being compromised or any harm to its citizens. It acted similarly prior to the Georgian crisis in August 2008, and everyone remembers how that ended. When Stalin spoke in such a manner, the Red Army invaded Poland and Hitler used almost the same language before invading the Sudetenland. The Russian rhetoric is warlike. In the West, on the other hand, nothing is new. It's all just words, words, words.
