Invading and conquering Ukraine

Like many I've been following the recent invasion of Ukraine by Russian armed forces this spring. And it was quite shocking at first to hear news of armed men capturing airfields and military bases in Crimea, but in retrospect I could have anticipated this. After all I played the original Su-27 flight simulator.

(Russian mechanized infantry in Georgia)

Only about 6 years ago Russia invaded its neighboring Georgia and successfully swept aside its armed forces  mostly with what seemed like a mix of equipment mostly from the 70's and 80's with minor modernization. This war which seemed engineered by the Russians through supporting Ossetian rebels was primarily a response to the newly introduced alignment of the Georgian government to the Western powers and possible NATO membership of the country which Russia opposes naturally.

(Orthodox Christianity seems very central to resurgent Russia. Here are two Russian invaders in Ukraine accompanied by priests.)

The invasion of Crimea and perhaps especially the continuing operations in eastern Ukraine are however very different in nature.
While the Georgian invasion was a rather traditional massive attack with combined arms the invasion of Ukraine was mostly a special operation reminiscent of the unsuccessful Soviet attempt to defeat the Baltic nations in their bid at reclaiming their independence in the 1990s.  Both employed a mix of special operators (spetsnaz) of various official services such as army and KGB/FSB as well as criminal/mafia elements or terrorists.

(Estonian riflemen. In the 1990s the Baltic countries defeated Soviet special operators creating chaos within their borders and regained their independence.)

Russia is now very firmly in control of the Crimean peninsula it seems but its still a question whether the Ukrainians will be able to defeat the Russian mafia/spetsnaz forces that have occupied some easterly provinces. 

The Ukrainian armed forces seem very run down and judging by its actions its morale is clearly not the most solid in the world. It nonetheless possesses considerable firepower as well as industrial and technical know how in its weapons industry and the influx activists and demonstrators into the armed forces seem to have improved its valor without diluting its level of training too much.
Nonetheless things still seem quite fluid and its hard to say who will win despite the fact that the Ukrainians are on the offensive at the moment. It will be very hard indeed for them to secure their long borders with Russia where spetsnaz operators and mafia members can cross back and forth with impunity.