TEMPLATE ANALYSIS

The pictures unfolding on our television screens show well armed ‘professional’ troops patrolling the key sites of the Crimea. By all accounts, the atmosphere is calm and everyone is carrying on their daily duties with some waiving Russian flags, others Ukranian.
When they are asked whether they are Russian, the troops do not reply. Since the takeover in Kiev, hundreds of such men have arrived in the Crimea and have occupied key strategic areas. Initially, they were there to protect the Russian speakers who form the majority of the province but the longer they are there the more this looks like a complete takeover of what to Vladimir Putin is a vital part of his nation’s identity. Russia has been accused by the Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen of putting peace at risk in Europe. The US President Barack Obama has threatened Moscow with economic and political…