EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

• Ukraine and Russia, despite relatively good relations during their mutual communist era, have had high-level political disagreements over energy and Ukraine’s flirtations with the West.
• Ukraine is heavily dependent upon Russia for natural gas and Russia historically attempts to leverage that dependency to force political concessions. Much of the Russian natural gas consumed by Western Europe flows through pipelines that pass through Ukraine. Any economic sanctions placed on Russia by the West may boomerang if Russia chooses to stop the export of fossil fuels to Western Europe.
• Language plays a major role in the cultural identity of a group of people. More students in eastern Ukraine receive classroom instruction in the Russian language than those in the western two-thirds of the country, who primarily learn in the Ukrainian language.
• A combination of previously stationed Russian troops, highly trained airborne units, naval infantry and Spetsnaz (Russian special forces) personnel from the Central and Western Military Districts, along with pro-Russian local defense forces took control of Crimea in less than a month.
• The Russian/local self-defense forces captured a Ukrainian ship using a combination of information warfare, psychological operations, and military action.