Wth way things are going in Ukraine, where it sounds like the 'rebel' forces are falling back and falling apart consequent to a push by the Ukrainian military - looks like my opinion on how things would play out will be put to the test. I believed Putin was always first and foremost trying to force a political solution that favored him long term - but that if he failed to get that, if Kiev refused to compromise and pushed things to a head, he'd have no choice but to respond militarily since much of the point of what he was doing was rhetorical, was about creating the impression of a strong and influential Russia under his masterful leadership - Kiev being allowed to crush the pro-Russian separatists doesn't fit that narrative at all. The logic of events said to me that Putin must have understood from the beginning that if things did not go as planned he'd have to be prepared to okay a more pronounced involvement by the Russian military - or suffer the political consequences of looking like a weak failure. Putin doesn't strike me as a man much interested in looking weak nor does Russian culture and its political system seem particularly tolerant of such either.
Now, he still has cards to play here, namely fact that Ukraine is a fairly dysfunctional and corrupt place utterly dependent of Russian natural gas - and fact that the EU is also dependent on that gas and has made it very clear it has little appetite for waging an economic war of sanctions on Putin because it might end up hurting them as much as it hurts Russia - and so I don't expect an outright invasion of eastern Ukraine - but it does seem we're getting to the point where Putin is going to have to seriously ramp up the pressure, raise the stakes as it were, or back away from the table and accept the consequences of that. There's nothing about Putin that suggests he'll opt for the latter [although if he does back away it would mean, aside from accurately predicting Putin's move into Crimea, that I got most of the Ukraine calculus wrong].
Now, he still has cards to play here, namely fact that Ukraine is a fairly dysfunctional and corrupt place utterly dependent of Russian natural gas - and fact that the EU is also dependent on that gas and has made it very clear it has little appetite for waging an economic war of sanctions on Putin because it might end up hurting them as much as it hurts Russia - and so I don't expect an outright invasion of eastern Ukraine - but it does seem we're getting to the point where Putin is going to have to seriously ramp up the pressure, raise the stakes as it were, or back away from the table and accept the consequences of that. There's nothing about Putin that suggests he'll opt for the latter [although if he does back away it would mean, aside from accurately predicting Putin's move into Crimea, that I got most of the Ukraine calculus wrong].
