Why Russia will not partition Ukraine & instead win it all

[Reality Check]

Russia wants all of the Ukraine, not just one third of the Ukraine ( the east and the southern coast ), and not just one tenth ( the Crimea ).

Russia will take control ( directly or indirectly ) of the voting apparatus in 1/2 of the Ukraine, 1/2 by population, then there will be a "compromise" with the west whereby elections in all of Ukraine will determine the outcome of what the Ukraine will do, with 90 percent plus in the Russian controlled half voting for a Russian puppet government and 75% voting against in the rest of Ukraine.

1/2 of the Population would include everything east of the Dnieper river, the southern coastal areas of the black sea and all large cities anywhere near the Black Sea. The capital of the Ukraine, Kiev, the largest city in Ukraine, and the metropolitan area around it on the west bank of the Dnieper river would also be occupied by Russian troop, prior to a cease fire negotiated by the UN and a UN sponsored agreement to hold elections to determine the will of the Ukrainian voters. Russia will be allowed to write the cease fire and election agreements as a precondition to Russia not vetoing the cease fire and not vetoing the election agreement in the UN security council.

Russia wins by a landslide a "free and democratic vote" that give's it control of 100% of the Ukraine through a proxy Ukrainian puppet government. West will be able to claim it was the will of the people, and Russia gets to add Ukraine to a new Russian empire. All nice and legal with the agreement of the west.

Ukraine will not be partitioned.

[John]

I've been listening to analysts debate this all day. I don't think
anyone believes that Russia is going to try to take all of Ukraine
militarily, since after they won they'd have to deal with a nasty,
continuing insurgency. Some suggested that Russia might take Crimea
and eastern Ukraine. An intriguing question is why the Russians are
keeping Yanukovych around and giving him a platform when they consider
him to be a dishrag. One possibility is that they hope to force Kiev
to agree to a unity government in which Yanukovych plays a major role,
and protects Russian interests.

[Reality Check]

I've been listening to analysts debate this all day. I don't think
anyone believes that Russia is going to try to take all of Ukraine
militarily, since after they won they'd have to deal with a nasty,
continuing insurgency. Some suggested that Russia might take Crimea
and eastern Ukraine.

Most analysts also believe the southern coastal areas of western Ukraine, which are Russian speaking, are very pro-Russian.

Eastern Ukraine is the one third, by area, of Ukraine east of the Dnieper river. The Dnieper river is a defensible natural border between eastern and western Ukraine. This area, east Ukraine, is also densely populated and the location of the vast majority of Ukrainian industrial facilities.

Most of eastern Ukraine, but not all, has a substantial Ethnic Russian population, and most of that area, but not all, has an ethnic Ukrainian population that speaks Russian as it's first/native language. Those areas have always voted heavily in favor of the pro-Russian candidates in the Ukraine.

The exception to those characteristics is the northern third of eastern Ukraine. Those unlucky rural ethnic Ukrainians who speak Ukrainian as their first language are bordered by the country of Russia on two sides, Russian speaking areas of Ukraine on the south, and the natural barrier of the Dnieper river separates them from other Ukrainian speaking Ukrainians in the western portion of Ukraine. They are far from western media outlets and highly susceptible to both ethnic cleansing and forced political submission in their rural isolation.

1/2 of the population of the Ukraine lives in Eastern Ukraine and the southern coastal areas of Ukraine. If you include the metropolitan area of Kiev, the largest city, which sits on both sides of the Dnieper river, in the area to be occupied by Russia and it's allied Ukrainian forces, then Russia and it's allies would physically control over half of the Ukrainian population.

No one is suggesting that Russia would attempt to occupy the vast rural expanses of the western 2/3rds of Ukraine that is cut through by North-South flowing rivers in many places. But the major transportation links for Ukraine can be controlled from the eastern third and the Black Sea Coast, except for access to the Danube on the extreme western edge of the Ukraine.

Russia only needs to Occupy one third of Ukraine to control the industry and commerce of the entire country.

However, Russia is playing a political game to control all of Ukraine, the military occupation of eastern Ukraine is just one political element in achieving that political goal.

Russia may misjudge the will of the Ukrainian people to fight a long war of attrition against their militarily superior neighbor, but Russia has not misjudged the lack of will on the part of the west to be part of such a long military struggle.

The UN and major western powers, may turn out to be Russia's best allies in allowing a free vote in western Ukraine, and a rigged vote in occupied portions of Ukraine, to legitimize Russian domination over the entire country of Ukraine.