FYI, Crimea has been a part of Russia for over 200 years, except for the post Soviet Union period, which in and of itself was the result of a symbolic transfer of Crimea to the Ukranian SSR in 1954, marking the 300th year of the Ukraine under Russian rule. A move, which was supposed to have no strategic consequence, until the Soviet Union broke up and twenty years later NATO attempted to bring the Ukraine into their fold.

Of course Russia could not allow their warm water port to fall under NATO jurisdiction

Please note that I've taken care to say "people" rather than "nations" or "government." People organize themselves into all sorts of forms with all sorts of power. I get that sovereignty is a particularly loaded term, but what I'm getting at is that culture is a product of a people, and a people is entitled to determine its own fate with the powers available to it.