Ukraine’s apparently ousted president Viktor Yanukovich will hold a news conference in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don later on Friday.  He’s expected to tell the world that he still considers himself the president of the nation from which he dropped from sight some six days ago.

Yanukovich put out a statement warning that the Russian regions in eastern and southern Ukraine would “not accept the anarchy and outright lawlessness” that he believes the pro-Europe protesters who ousted him have unleashed.

Meanwhile, pro-Russian gunmen have seized control of the Crimean parliament in Simferopol, and hoisted a really, really big Russian flag on the roof.  They also put up a sign reading “Crimea is Russia” and responded to questions from a journalist with a flash grenade.  It raises the specter of a separatist rebellion that could deepen and possibly even shove a cleaver in country’s cultural divide between the pro-EU west and ethnically Russian east.

How Russia will deal with this crisis that’s either on its doorstep or in its house, depending on the point of view, is not clear.  Russian President Vladimir Putin has put 150,000 troops on alert to “test” their combat readiness.  Newly approved Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk says the Russians need to stay on their side of the border, and warned the Russian Navy not to make any provocative moves at the deep-water port at Sevastopol, where Russian ships dock. 

As if he could do anything about it.  It seems unlikely that Ukraine on its own could do anything to stop Russia, anymore than Georgia was when Russia helped South Ossetia break away in 2008.  It also seems unlikely the western powers that are trying to lure Ukraine would try to get in the way of Russian troops.  But Putin may just bide his time and allow the West to try to hold this hot potato of a country that seems a hair away from social and economic collapse.