CNN New Day March 3, 2014 12:35:00
Its naval base, the black sea fleet in crimea. the lease expires in 2017. a new agreement was signed in 2010 with the former ukrainian president and that lease now goes to 2042, but russia wants to make sure that the new ukrainian government, whatever its composition is, doesn't renege on that. so the immediate thing is to make sure that the black sea fleet stays there. more broadly, what putin wants to do is to ensure that ukraine doesn't decisively move west, sign a major agreement with the european union. and by essentially beginning to dismember part of ukraine, that is occupying crimea an...