Includes index.

Part I. The backstory of a disputed Crimea : Khrushchev's gift : the questionable ownership of Crimea / Vasiliy Kashin ; Part II. A picture of the military faceoff : The Soviet inheritance of Ukrainian armed forces / Sergey Denisentsev -- Neglect and rot : degradation of Ukraine's military in the interim period / Anton Lavrov and Aleksey Nikolsky -- Hard lessons learned : Russian military reform up to the Georgian conflict / Mikhail Barabanov -- Changing the force and moving forward after Georgia / Mikhail Barabanov -- Little, green, and polite : the creation of Russian special operations forces / Aleksey Nikolsky ; Part III. The annexation of Crimea : Home of the Black Sea Fleet : history and disposition of Russian forces on Crimea / Dmitry Boltenkov -- Russian again : the military operation for Crimea / Anton Lavrov ; Part IV. Ukrainian armed forces put to the test : Viewing the action in Ukraine from the Kremlin's windows / Mikhail Barabanov -- Civil war in the east : how the conflict unfolded before Minsk I / Anton Lavrov -- Aircraft, tanks and artillery in the Donbass / Anton Lavrov -- Reorganization under crisis : development of Ukraine's defense and security agencies / Alexey Nikolsky -- Rebuilding and refocusing the force : modernization of the Ukranian Armed Forces.