Ukraine-Russia crisis: How soon might a war be and what would it look like?

"The important thing to realize is that (Russia) is quite wary of what it calls contact warfare," that is, forces fighting each on the ground, said Sam Cranny-Evans, a research analyst with the UK-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). "We've seen (this) in Chechnya, in Afghanistan, in Georgia and its covert deployments to Ukraine, that military losses actually do generate political pressure."