First the article says Ukrainian tv claims that only 15% voted then its updated and says 30%. And Russia is claiming 83%. Regardless of who's lying the most about that election, the actions on the ground tell the most likely truth. None of the people in Crimea are rebelling against Russia meanwhile other parts of Ukraine are in chaos and violently resisting the newly installed regime in Kiev. And there have been desertions when Kiev tries to send in troops and subdue an area in revolt. Clearly the Ukrainian people don't support the recent unelected western backed government in Kiev. No matter how many anti-russian articles the mainstream media pushes.
Russian forces in the rest of Ukraine are causing trouble--those people aren't locals.
And the people in the Crimea know better than to cause trouble. Russia has a record of putting down uprisings in bloody ways.
It really isn't as simple as that.
The situation as I see it is rather similar to that of Ireland a century ago. The big power in the region, having spent a few centuries settling people who are loyal to it in the most strategically important part of the country, and in the capital city, decide to annexe the bit where their people are in the majority. The majority of the people of the six counties of Northern Ireland welcomed partition; they were British, they spoke no Gaelic, they wanted no part of an independent Ireland, and having oppressed the indigenous population for hundreds of years, they were justifiably fearful of retribution once the protection of the British was withdrawn. The Crimea is similar; it has a small number of indigenous Ukrainians, swamped by ethnic Russians who care little for rule from Kiev. The vast majority of people in Crimea won't 'cause trouble' for Russia because they see themselves as Russian. Hard-line Ukrainians in Crimea are few and far between.
The 'real' Ukranians, however, the ones in the West who speak Ukrainian, and who want to be a free and independent state, don't want to be a free West Ukraine, any more than Sinn Fein wanted a free Southern Ireland; they want their whole country, not just the bits of it they haven't yet been displaced from.
In short, it is a massive clusterfuck, and, like the Irish question, the best response from any political entity that is not forced by fate to play a role is to stay the fuck away.
Perhaps the best possible outcome would be partition, with Crimea and the southern and eastern Oblasts with majority Russian speakers becoming part of Russia, and the rest becoming a smaller, but more homogeneous, Ukraine; If that happens, the majority of ethnic Russians in Kiev would likely want to get the hell out, because it probably won't be pretty. Indeed, that result would be rathetr ugly, and likely violent - but any other plausible outcome will IMO probably be even worse. Intervention by any third party will not be well received on either side, and would be a world of pain for no gain to the intervenor(s). The idea that this situation has anything at all to do with the USA is crazy; the idea that the US could gain from intervening to help the plucky Ukrainians against the evil Russians is almost as good a plan as intervening to help the plucky Vietnamese against the evil Chinese was.
Seriously. Stay away. Let them sort it out. In a few centuries, it will all settle down, and no Americans (nor Australians, Britons, Canadians, Germans, Frenchmen, or anyone else who is neither Russian nor Ukrainian) needs to have gotten hurt.
