NIKOLAS GVOSDEV:

I think a lot depends on the strength of the Ukrainian government and what aid that they're going to receive in the next few days.

Cliff is absolutely right. The federalization of the Ukraine is anathema to the Maidan protesters, but the Maidan protesters are not the only force active in Ukraine.

And I think what the Russians are trying to do, what they demonstrated in Crimea, what they may try to do over the next few days in Eastern Ukraine is essentially to demonstrate that the government in Kiev cannot exercise control over large portions of Ukraine and that if a government in Kiev wants to regain control over the country as a whole, not just over the center and the western parts, where the reach of the government currently exists, that they're going to have to deal with Russia.

They also want to essentially show up the West, that the West makes a lot of promises, politicians arrive, but that there's not going to be a lot of concrete aid. And so we do have this element of a game of chicken here where the Russians are essentially testing to see what the mettle of the European Union and the United States is, how far are they really willing to go to challenge Russia's attempt to rewrite in essence the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the terms under which the Soviet Union dissolved.