Is Crimea gone? Annexation no longer the focus of Ukraine crisis

CNN: In diplomacy, like in sales, success often depends on making your adversaries believe they proposed the result you wanted.  By that measure, Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to have closed the sale on annexing Crimea from Ukraine.

On Monday, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev visited the region that Moscow now claims over international protests, while Russia also said it was withdrawing a battalion of infantry troops from the tens of thousands deployed near the border with eastern Ukraine.

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