
© Alexander Khudoteply / AFP / Getty ImagesA Ukrainian woman holds a Soviet flag during a rally in the industrial city of Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine, on Feb. 22, 2014
The busload of officers only began to feel safe when they entered the Crimean peninsula. Through the night on Friday, they drove the length of Ukraine from north to south, having abandoned the capital city of Kiev to the revolution. Along the way the protesters in several towns pelted their bus with eggs, rocks and, at one point, what looked to be blood before the retreating officers realized it was only ketchup. "People were screaming, cursing at us," recalls one of the policemen, Vlad Roditelev.
Finally, on Saturday morning, the bus reached the refuge of Crimea, the only chunk of Ukraine where the revolution has failed to take hold. Connected to the mainland by two narrow passes, this huge peninsula on the Black Sea has long been a land apart, an island of Russian nationalism in a nation drifting toward
Europe. One of its biggest cities, Sevastopol, is home to a Russian naval base that
houses around 25,000 troops, and most Crimean residents identify themselves as Russians, not Ukrainians.
Comment: It appears that the people of Crimea have good cause to be worried and turn to Russia for help.
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