Did Hillary Clinton's Russian reset encourage Putin to take the Crimea?

Yes.

Both Hillary's "reset button" and Obama's message to Putin stating that he could be "more flexible after his re-election" were interpreted as signs of weakness by the Russian President.

Edit:

Since I have apparently been blocked by Hondo98, and cannot comment on his false answer, I am forced to call him out through this edit:

@Hondo98:

Yeah???

Name the Parts of Georgia which were taken over during the Bush Administration.

There were NONE.

However, Putin DID sign a little-publicized accord that handed over foreign policy, border control, and security of South Ossetia, a breakaway region of Georgia, to Moscow, earlier this year, UNDER the Obama Administration.

Be fair, Mad Dog...There had to be all sorts of behind-the-scenes intense exchanges and policy discussions to which neither you nor I were privy. As Secretary of State and the U.S. emissary, Hillary Clinton used an ambiguous, popular, and at that time current stage prop for the photo-op of which egomaniacal Vladimir Putin is so fond. Putin has his sticky, power-lusting fingers in a whole lot of kleptomaniacal pies (read "The Kleptocracy of Vladimir Putin"), but he also has a deep-rooted need to appear "heroic" on the world stage, which is why he insists upon having a very tight control on Russian media. The "reset" button is symbolic, delivering a pre-invasion of Ukraine light message of "Let's agree to disagree and start fresh." What the heck is wrong with that message. The trick in dealing with a hardliner short aging man with a humungous ego who is going through his mid-life crisis is to keep things loose and light.

The issue at hand for the aggression in Ukraine and Crimea began as a dispute over a trade deal the Ukrainian leader wanted to make with Europe---and to which control-freak monopoly-favoring Putin objected strenuously. However, to avoid appearing like the Dick-Cheney-type "bad guy," Putin chose to trick the Russian separatists who live in Ukraine and Crimea into doing his dirty work so that he can falsely portray himself as an innocent bystander, which of course he is not. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the meeting between Hillary Clinton and Putin. At this point, our Chess-Master-In-Chief President Obama and his team are calmly playing a masterful game of chess with Putin on the world stage, to include normalizing relations with Cuba to quietly counter Putin flying to Cuba the day the passenger plane was shot down by missiles Putin himself had provided to the separatists (our intelligence shows). The economic sanctions that are crippling Russia's economy were strengthened by President Obama that day, so a petulant hostile Putin decided to give a veiled THREAT to the U.S. by the flight to Cuba to meet with Castro, forgive Cuba's debt with Russia, and then drop "hints" that he might be willing to open the 1960s Russian missile base---a goad trying to make our No-Drama Obama angry and to fake a "roar" when he is feeling cuckolded.

The "reset" button has no role to play here beyond the aforementioned symbolic message.

He took parts of Georgia during the W Bush administration. I'm not accusing asker of being a Fox News zombot, but there are some who will read this. They likely haven't heard anything bout it. Couldn't be.

YB Logical is a liar. He's not so stupid that he can't Google. Here is the top source I got when I did a web search:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupied_territories_...

United States must learn to work with other countries if we are to share power in the world.

http://www.voanews.com/content/china-reaches-out-t...

On another note, Putin is conceding to the United states and the European union, he says he is now willing to talk.

http://www.voanews.com/content/reu-russian-putin-s...

It was a factor, even if it was a very small factor

It was silly, and is a prime example of projecting weakness to the world

No.