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Russia's Operation to Annex Crimea Represented Decisive and Competent Use of Military Force in Pursuit of Political Ends

• Russia was able to seize the territory of a neighboring state with speed and mobility.
• The political maneuvering on the peninsula during the invasion suggests that it may have been launched without a predetermined political outcome in mind.
• Russia likely sought to seize Crimea, and then evaluated its political options depending in part on how the intervention was received at home and abroad.

Russia's Operations in Crimea Benefited from a Series of Highly Favorable Circumstances That Makes It Difficult to Replicate

• These included political, historical, geographical, linguistic, and military advantages in the region that have only partial analogues elsewhere in the former Soviet republics.
• The confined geography of the peninsula, the proximity of Crimea to Russia, and its existence as a separate political unit within Ukraine gave Russia leverage.
• Russia's Black Sea Fleet was nearby, with legitimate transit routes that could be leveraged for a covert operation.

Russian Leaders Are Likely to Consider Eastern Ukraine to Be a Strategic Success but an Unsuccessful Operation

• Russia's efforts in Eastern Ukraine proved to be a series of improvisations in response to resistance and friction when the initial political warfare effort foundered.
• The lessons of Eastern Ukraine are rather mixed, demonstrating the limits of low-cost asymmetrical approaches even against a relatively weak and vulnerable state.
• Russia achieved its primary objectives but at a much higher cost than desired and through a fitful cycle of adaptation.