Big power drama over Ukraine

In a recent development, Russia has cut the flow of gas to Ukraine after last-ditch talks reportedly failed to resolve a price dispute that threatens to disrupt supplies to Europe. The unfolding events in Ukraine have revived the Cold War era rivalries between the US-led Western European countries and erstwhile Soviet Union's successor state, the Russian Federation.
The trouble started with public protests in Kiev against the Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovich's November 21 decision not to sign trade and political deals with the European Union, and later leading to demands for the president to step down for alleged corruption and mismanagement of the economy. The ensuing violence, in which more than 100 protesters lost their lives, forced him to leave the country and find refuge in Moscow. Notably, however, all this while the situation was very different in ethnic Russian majority Crimea and the country's eastern and southern regions dominated by Russian speaking Ukrainians, who came out to hold large pro-Russian demonstrations, raising Russian flags over government buildings in several cities to show the country was divided on the policy towards Moscow.
Washington has been blowing hot and cold over the developments with President Obama holding a 90-minute long conversation with President Putin in March to dissuade him from intervening after the latter obtained a unanimous vote from his parliament to protect Russian interests. But the next day, Russian forces Seized control of Crimea, where Stavropol serves as Russia's largest naval base and its only warm water port.
A large part of the responsibility for what is happening in Russia's backyard belongs to the Western countries. Notably, over much of the last several months Moscow had maintained that the unrest in Ukraine was an internal matter and that neither the US nor Russia should meddle. Yet it was not expected to stay as an unconcerned bystander as others meddled in Ukraine with which it has long-standing political, historical and cultural ties.