Ukraine's fledgling government is warning that Russia's actions in Crimea—the strategic peninsula that juts into the Black Sea and is home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet—is part of a historical tactic to gain control over former Soviet territory. "They are provoking us into an armed conflict," said interim president Oleksandr Turchynov. "Based on our intelligence, they're working on scenarios analogous to Abkhazia, in which they provoke conflict, and then they start to annex territory."

The "annexation" that the newly minted Ukrainian leader is referring to is that of the mountainous region of Abkhazia on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, just three miles south of Sochi. The region had been long simmering: A war in 1992-93 led to