The main reason to believe that, global protestations aside, Russian President Vladimir Putin has already achieved his key goals by occupying the strategically important Ukrainian region of Crimea is the example of Georgia. In the common understanding of the 2008 five-day war, Russia invaded its Western-looking neighbor and essentially kept the regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as door prizes. (Russia, and Russia alone, recognizes the regions as autonomous.) The West stood by, talking mildly tough but not acting.
But that's a misunderstanding of the Georgia war, says Asaf Ronel in Israel's Haaretz. "While Putin did succeed in preventing American soldiers from being stationed on his southern border, he lost his hold on Georgia completely." Ronel continues:
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