Crimea is probably lost to Ukraine. Within the space of a few days, it has become the latest in a string of "frozen conflict" zones that Russia has used to strong-arm ex-Soviet neighbors ever since the Union collapsed.
The history of these unrecognized statelets suggests that authorities in Kiev are unlikely to regain control of Crimea for decades, if ever. There are few better ways of understanding events on the peninsula right now than to look at how these other "frozen" zones emerged.
Early in 1991, while the Soviet Union was still in one piece but beginning to rip along the seams of its Socialist Republics, I drove my dowdy blue VW Passat from Romania into Moldova and around the Black Sea to Georgia. Most of the route I took is today under the control of Russia’s frozen-conflict satellites. It is not impossible that they will soon join into a solid band of Russian-controlled territory along the entire northern Black Sea coast.
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