Ukraine - Russian invasion of Crimea, how far will Putin go?

The Russian historian Andrei Zubov, for example, has published a sophisticated comparison between Putin's seizure of Crimea and Adolf Hitler's annexation of Austria, seeing both as the beginning of a chain of events with fatal consequences not just for the subjects of the aggression but for the aggressors themselves.
In Vienna, where I live, one also hears constant mentions of 1938. Austrians and other citizens of European Union countries are beginning to consider what the end of Ukraine might mean for their own European system. The point is not that Putin is like Hitler; the point is that the removal of a state from Europe has consequences for the continent.
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Just as most European leaders were happy to accept the German idea that Austria had no right to exist, many people around the West seem ready to forget about Ukraine or to believe the Kremlin's propaganda that half of the country is Russian.
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Yet the reasons why states are supposed to exist are general, transcending their particular histories. The principles of international law are not subject to particular claims about identities. As with Putin today in Ukraine, Hitler in 1938 in Austria based his claim on the need to protect fellow ethnics. It is easy to criticize Putin's arguments in some important details.
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Putin claims to be defending "compatriots," but that is a category that has no meaning. The suggestion is that anyone who speaks Russian needs a Russian invasion; that would mean that since I am writing in English I need an English invasion.
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The European system of today is based on the principle of state sovereignty, combined with the robust international cooperation of the European Union, and legitimated by a historically new attention to human rights. The European Union is based on the premise of learning from history. National Socialism and Stalinism are seen as experiences from which Europeans have learned and extremes to which European politics must be restrained.
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The seizure of Crimea was meant as a challenge to the European Union. It is meant to prove that European values cannot defend themselves.
Can they?

Look...I'm no fan of Russian expansionism and I certainly am no fan of Putin, but what is happening there is part and parcel of the disintegration of the Soviet empire. The Crimea was part of Russia within the Soviet system and was 'gifted' to Ukraine during the Soviet system, within the lifetimes of those now living. It's the result of 'border-jiggling' within the Soviet system which is still being played out thirty years later. I don't think it is worth military conflict....if you, or your country wish to engage in military conflict, then YOU do it. Don't come whining to the US to be the "police". And...I don't think that Sweden is part of any supra-national military/diplomatic organization in Europe...it's not part of NATO, nor the European Union, the last I heard. And, since the collapse of the Soviet empire, Sweden has been reducing it's military and thus it's 'preparedness' for such events. Now, they want somebody else to protect them? The US? Then they need to become part of the program, rather than always 'going it on their own'.

And, from what I understand from the Finns, the Swedes have not been particularly friendly about borderlands and Swedish speakers in neighboring nations. Perhaps we should fear them, too?

Crimean authorities should urgently conduct a thorough investigation into the enforced disappearance and subsequent killing of Reshat Ametov, a Crimean Tatar from the Simferopol region, and bring the perpetrators to justice.

Ametov’s relatives told Human Rights Watch that he was last seen during a protest on March 3, 2014, on Lenin Square in Simferopol, Ukraine, where three unidentified men in military-style jackets had led him away. Relatives’ efforts to locate him, including through a complaint to the police, were unsuccessful. On March 16, local police informed them that a body bearing marks of violent death had been found outside the town of Belogorsk. On March 17, the family identified the body as Ametov’s.

“The disappearance and murder of Reshat Ametov illustrates the climate of lawlessness that has been pervasive in Crimea over the last week,” said Rachel Denber, deputy Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

During Stalin's Great Purge, statesmen and intellectuals such as Veli Ibraimov and Bekir Çoban-zade (1893–1937), were imprisoned or executed on various charges.
Soviet policies on the peninsula led to widespread starvation in 1921.[citation needed] Food was confiscated for shipment to central Russia, while more than 100,000 Tatars starved to death, and tens of thousands fled to Turkey or Romania.[28] Thousands more were deported or slaughtered during the collectivization in 1928–29.[28] The government campaign led to another famine in 1931–33. No other Soviet nationality suffered the decline imposed on the Crimean Tatars; between 1917 and 1933 half the Crimean Tatar population had been killed or deported.[28]
During World War II, the entire Crimean Tatar population in Crimea fell victim to Soviet policies. Although a great number of Crimean Tatar men served in the Red Army and took part in the partisan movement in Crimea during the war, the existence of the Tatar Legion in the Nazi army and the collaboration of Crimean Tatar religious and political leaders with Hitler during the German occupation of Crimea provided the Soviets with a pretext for accusing the whole Crimean Tatar population of being Nazi collaborators. Modern researchers also point to the fact that a further reason was the geopolitical position[which?] of Crimea where Crimean Tatars were perceived as a threat.

Russia has intensified its espionage efforts in Sweden to include war preparations, Swedish security service Säpo warned on Monday.

"The most serious threat we see right now is war preparations," Säpo chief counter-intelligence analyst Wilhelm Unge said at a press conference on Monday.

While stressing that such preparations did not necessarily mean anything dramatic, he said: "It's no secret that Russia is engaged in this. It's a little bit worrying."

Unge said Russia's intensified interest in Sweden was evidenced by simulated flight attacks on Swedish targets as well as attempts to recruit spies, increased signals intelligence, and the purchase of a significant number of maps.

"If you weren't carrying out war preparations against Sweden, you probably wouldn't have any military intelligence here. The intelligence service is part of the Russian general staff and just the fact that they are here indicates some kind of intent," he said.

But if people should be worried in Sweden, even more so in Finland, once a part of the Russian empire?
Russian military drills near neighboring Finland have provoked concern that northern Europe may be the next focus of Moscow's seemingly renewed appetite for redrawing its borders.

Troops and jet fighters from all four military regions of Russia were deployed Sunday about 150 miles east of the Finnish border, according to the English-language newspaper Finnbay. The Russian defense ministry said in a statement that the exercises were pre-planned and that more than 50 fighter pilots took part.

Finland was part of the Russian empire for 108 years, from 1809 until Russia’s withdrawal from World War I in 1917.
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"Parts of Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states and Finland are states where Putin claims to have ownership," said Illarionov, who is now a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.,-based Cato Institute.

Illarionov, who was chief economic adviser to Putin until 2005 and is described by the Moscow Times as an outspoken Kremlin critic, said Putin could argue the Communist revolution of 1917 was a "treason against national interests."

"It is not on Putin's agenda today or tomorrow," Illarionov added. "But if Putin is not stopped, the issue will be brought sooner or later."

"So who is to stop Putin? Neither Finland nor Sweden is a member of Nato. If an EU-nation is attacked, the other EU nations are obliged to help. But it is unclear which kind of help. The Baltic states are members of Nato.

Last year Russian prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that Finnish or Swedish Nato membership would force Moscow to "respond".