CRIMEANS vote on Sunday in an illegal “referendum” which will lock them into Russia’s embrace. After this vote, and the takeover by Russian troops of the southern Ukraine peninsula, Vladimir Putin will claim he has legal justification for further military build-up and direct armed attack. How do I know? Because of the many painful parallels and lessons from Georgia in 2008.

The invasions of Ukraine and Georgia bear striking similarities, not only because the pattern of the invader stays the same, but also because the two countries share deep historic parallels.

Today, when Putin and his cheerleaders in the West claim Russia has legitimate interests in Ukraine — as they justified Russia’s aggression in Georgia on the pretext of protecting Russian citizens — they seem to ignore the facts.

In eastern Ukraine, Stalin’s regime killed seven million people in an artificially created famine in the 1930s, to replace a restive population with a more loyal one. In Crimea, they deported the indigenous Tatars, increasing the number of Russians instead.

By the same token, those who justify Russia’s occupation of the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia stubbornly ignore the fact that largely due to direct Russian intervention, the ethnic Georgian majorities were cleansed from their homelands.

Both Ukraine and Georgia aspired to join Nato, but the door was closed at the Bucharest summit of 2008. From Putin’s point of view, this untied his hands to deal with two neighbours that had tried to free themselves from Russia’s grip.

Both countries have had democratic revolutions, which clearly created ideological problems for Putin, as he regards successful reforms in Georgia, and Ukraine’s aspirations to achieve the same, as a direct threat to his own iron grip in Russia.

There are many parallels, too, with how the conflicts started. For months prior to August 2008, “unidentified troops” masquerading as local insurgents grabbed more and more control over Georgia’s separatist regions.

It was easier to start a hot war in Georgia as there was already a history of violent Russian-supported separatism, unlike Ukraine. Thankfully, we have not yet reached that point in Crimea.

The difference between Ukraine and Georgia is the sheer size of the territory. In Georgia’s case, if we had not responded then troops could have easily reached our capital, Tbilisi, within 24 hours.

Having said that, I have no doubt that in Ukraine Russia’s goal is the same as in Georgia. The Crimea referendum is just an intermediary instrument to achieve this goal.

In Georgia’s case they called it a “new legal reality”, Putin’s version of gross violation of existing international law.

If the West had reacted properly to Georgia, Ukraine would never have happened. The invasion of Georgia was the first time since the Cold War that Russia had tried to revise existing internationally recognised borders. So the West’s reaction was of disbelief, and then it sought to pin the blame on both sides.

Looking back, this gave Putin the sense he could get away with a similar adventure closer to Europe’s heartland. Many in the West hope the Ukraine crisis will fade away to business as usual.

But the cycles of appeasement usually get shorter with geometric progression. It took Putin only five years after Georgia to strike again. The longer he stays in power, the more his insecurity increases. He sees territorial conquest as a means of achieving political rejuvenation and longevity.

With the Crimea “referendum” a new clock has started to tick. The longer the West’s wishful thinking lasts, the bigger this problem will become.

Mikheil Saakashvili was president of Georgia from 2004 to 2013

—By arrangement with the Guardian