[mac_truck]

Odessa, Kherson, and Nikolaev will have to join forces; the era of city-states is long gone. This, however, will cut the Western Ukraine off from Black Sea, and that would be a serious problem... and that's where most of the violence is likely to occur.

Interesting. The Dneiper river runs to the Black Sea also.

[Greysard]

The Dneiper river runs to the Black Sea also.

The city of Kherson controls the exit into Black Sea. Those cities were not built in random places. Kherson is of extreme importance.

[goldstategop]

Any Russian takeover of Ukraine will be to control the entire length of the Dneiper - called the Nistru in Romanian.

That would also give Moscow a land bridge to Transnistria whose Slavs want to be incorporated into the Motherland.

A rump Ukrainian state will left to the north and the west of the Dnieper.

Of course assuming a political solution to the current crisis is not in the cards.