I wonder if that's actually realistically true.
The civil war has been going on for far longer and it will have to be dealt with. Ukrainian government seems to have also been signaling that its goal is to liberate Crimea, so this is also something that will be going on.
How would you deal with the Crimeans who got overly cozy showered with Russian Oil/Gas money?
I'm just curious why do you suppose that there would be no friction or resistance.
Maybe I misunderstood who you meant. I was thinking about business leaders striking lucrative deals, mayors appointed by the Russian administration, and so on.
I think there will probably be some resistance, but once the Russian troops leave Crimea, I can't see a popular uprising against the Ukraine as a state or something like that. Time will tell. I don't think Russia can hold Crimea in the long run. I'm not qualified to even guess, but when did that stop anybody?! :-D
I think it's likely Kiev will control Crimea within 24 months.
A peace that grants Russia the Sudetenland as a consolation prize along with a guarantee that Ukraine is sovereign (but with a big asterisk in that they are also not sovereign in the sense that they are able to join an alliance of their choosing to protect themselves from aggressors) is just an invitation for Russia to consolidate the new territory and prepare the next push. And not being able to see that is for me much more shallow thinking.