A couple of days ago the Russians sent troops to the Ukraine province of Crimea to “protect” the province’s Russian-speaking majority from oppression by the newly established Ukrainian government. Of course, the word “protect” is a mere euphemism for invade.

So what will the rest of the world do about it and indeed what can they do? There is certainly no political will in the West to take military action against Russia and why should the West become involved anyway?

For all the huffing and puffing by Presidents, Foreign Ministers and United Nations spokesmen the talk of the Russians “paying the price” for their actions is mere rhetoric. The Russian President, Vladimir Putin,  is cool, calculating and ruthless and he knows that he can do whatever he wants and get away with it – just like his Soviet predecessors did in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.

Eventually the whole thing will die down and the rest of the world will carry on as before. And the people of the Ukraine? Too bad, they’ll just have to get used to it.

What a sad world we live in.