Is it too much to hope that these 'referendums' might actually not be a scam event, and he can then announce that they voted to not be Russian, and this becomes his out strategy justification to the Russian sheep...........just all seems a bit too soon after he's got given some 'hard facts' of realty by the Chinese, Indians and others at his recent Asian security summit, especially with further unrest on his southern border states?
I still can't see Ukraine giving up getting Crimea back now though, even if my left-field hope above were to be true.