The Odessa Steps Sequence, Sergei Eisenstein

From the Guardian:

"Crimean parliament seizure inflames Russian-Ukrainian tensions – live

Gunmen hoist Russian flag and sign saying ‘Crimea is Russia’
White House warns Russia to respect Ukrainian sovereignty
Russia downplays planned military exercises as ‘routine’
Yanukovych, still claiming presidency, to appear in Russia"

Russia, historically, has had a deep yearning and need for a warm weather port since Peter the Great (200 years). A warm weather port is one that does not freeze over in the winter. Veterans of the Second World War have told of the horrors of making the convoy runs to Murmansk across the frozen North Atlantic. Note that the Russian Black Sea Fleet is headquartered at Odessa, and is based at the Sevastopol, Karantinnaya, and Streletskaya Bays in Sevastopol, in the Crimean Peninsula, even though that is sited in Ukraine. The ethnic tensions are rife. Stalin deported the Crimean Tatars who have been slowly returning to their homeland, they are anti-Russian. However, in the Crimea, the dominant ethnicity is Russian. And, clearly, the Russians got the best part of the deal made in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which Ukraine gave up its nukes and gave the Russians that warm weather access they so desire.

Russian geo-politics and the need for warm weather port is why Putin has been meddling in Syria; that port is Tartarus.