Moscow's Military Problems with Kiev - Many and Complex

[Reality Check]

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Kiev, the largest Province, in Ukraine, poses both Strategic and Tactical military problems for Moscow. Kiev has 4.5 Million people overall and 2.8 in the capital city alone.
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Strategically Kiev is the technical, administrative, political, population and military hub of the country of Ukraine.
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Militarily Kiev controls Ukraine, and Ukraine exists as a major European city, because Kiev sits astride bridges on the D'Nieper river ( 4th largest river in Europe ). Ukraine's strategic location there is NOT due to river commerce, Kiev is above the fall line on the D'Nieper river and Kiev became a great city in Europe before damns were built opening up the river to large barge traffic. The historic main land route, for both trade and military movement, from the North and North-East borders of Ukraine, to the Black Sea and to South-West borders of Ukraine, run through the Eastern European plain on the high ground above most rivers. Two of those rivers can NOT be avoided the D'Nieper River at Kiev, and the Southern Bug River.
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If Moscow's strategic goal is to dominate and control, either directly, or through compliant Ukrainian political allies, the country of Ukraine, one must dominate key parts of the province of Ukraine permanently ( not for just a short period of time as might be enough for tactical military reasons. )
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If, instead, Moscow's strategic goal is to neutralize Ukraine as a country, and break it into pieces, any group which unilaterally controls Kiev with freedom of action from Moscow, defeats such a goal. Any anti-Moscow group which controls Kiev, is by definition the government of the country of Ukraine and also makes Moscow a military occupier. Thus defeating Moscow's goal of neutralizing Ukraine.
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Tactically Kiev presents a number of immediate military challenges to Moscow.
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One tactic to justify an invasion of Ukraine is to temporarily flip the current elected government of Ukraine meeting in Keiv from anti-Moscow to pro-Moscow. Moscow already has the only elected President of Ukraine on it's side. The largest elected party ( The Party of Regions ) in the Ukrainian Parliament is also on Moscow's side. Less than two months ago some independent members of parliament and a few members of The Party of Regions abandoned the Pro-Moscow government led by The Party of Regions, allowing an anti-Moscow government to form with the defectors support.

Once Moscow has obtained enough conditional commitments to flip the parliamentary government back, Moscow must create the conditions on the ground in Kiev that allow the world to see a legitimate, democratically elected, pro-Moscow Ukrainian government was re-formed in Kiev once the "neo-Facists and Criminal armed protestors", are removed from the scene. This will require both diplomatic victories by Moscow and special forces military operations by Moscow's military, in Kiev, before such a vote will be allowed, by the current anti-Moscow government in Kiev, to both occur and be broadcast to the world. Both the current, anti-Moscow, Ukrainian government and the anti-Moscow protestors will do everything in their power to prevent such a vote ever taking place, and if it does take place, prevent it every being seeing on the world media as a peaceful, voluntary event.

The demonstrators and the barricades must be removed from the vicinity of the Ukrainian government buildings. Giving the visual impression that armed anti-Moscow demonstrators were removed from their positions of power and were no longer able to intimidate members of Parliament into voting the way the armed demonstrators wanted. The anti-Moscow Ukrainian government, under pressure from Western diplomats, are moving to do just that.

Once that has been done, Pro-Russian Ukrainian Security Forces, Moscow's intelligence agents on the ground in Kiev and Moscow's special forces, will have many difficult tasks in an area where the population is majority Anti-Moscow.

Securing the kill switches on media feeds, so the current anti-Moscow government is prevented from controlling what the world sees in Kiev. Preventing the current anti-Moscow leaders of the parliament from blocking a vote that would result in the anti-Moscow government falling and a pro-Moscow government replacing it, and, most difficult of all preventing anti-Moscow demonstrators from fighting their way back to vicinity of the Ukrainian parliament building before the show is over. The re-forming of a pro-Moscow government must appear to be in peaceful contrast to the chaotic, violent events preceding the forming of the anti-Moscow government.

The security and crowd control operations are going to very challenging in an environment where the populous is overwhelming anti-Moscow. But they must occur well away from the media covering the parliament. Forcing the protestors out of a hotel in down town Kiev to camps in the suburbs, which the anti-Moscow government has done under pressure, and Moscow had demanded was a one of the tasks achieved by Russian diplomacy.

Once a legitimate pro-Russian government is voted in, their loyalty to the legitimate elected President can be pledged. and then the legitimate Ukrainian Prime Minister and the legitimate Ukrainian President can request assistance from Russia to save Ukraine from the Nazis and other coup plotters that violently overthrew the elected government in February.

Then "all that has to happen" is air mobile Russian forces secure, or block, all the airports around Kiev, and hold the Bridges until a large Russian armored force can make it to Kiev across approximately 150 miles of the wide open Eastern European Plain between Kursk, Russia and Kiev, Ukraine. Pro-Russian forces must also secure telephone, internet and natural gas distribution infrastructure in the Province of Kiev.

The difficulty of the Air Mobile, Special Forces and Intelligence officers in carrying out these tasks in concert with pro-Moscow Ukrainian security forces and achieving all their objectives, inside a city of 2.8 Million people who are up to 80% anti-Moscow in some areas of the city, will be hard to over estimate.

However, as long as Moscow is able to hold the bridges and block the airports until the heavy armor arrives, and secure ( or safely evacuate the members of ) the pro-Moscow parliamentary government, the invasion of Ukraine should proceed rapidly to the Southwest Border between Moldova and Ukraine.

The chances of a pro-Russian parliamentary government holding sessions in Kiev city for many days is slim. But a "legitimate government", which includes the pro-Russian government with a majority of all members of parliament, plus the Communists and one or two minor parties as the loyal opposition, meeting elsewhere in Ukraine, would be a real coup for Moscow. The parliamentary members of the Father Land party and the Freedom party together, the largest and second largest anti-Moscow parties represented in the elected parliament, have so few members elected to parliament, they would be viewed as protestors who refused to travel to where the legitimate government was meeting, not an alternative government.

Military action could change the diplomatic debate from how to break Ukraine up, to how to put it back together again.