Vladimir Putin’s decision to ask the Russian parliament to approve the deployment of Russian troops to Ukraine makes the situation there even more serious. The request shows that Putin has no intention of heeding Western warning to request the sovereignty of Ukraine. It is also noticeable that the request doesn’t simply cover the Crimea, with its ethnic Russian population, but the whole of Ukraine.
It now seems that at the very least this situation will lead towards the de-facto partition of the Ukraine. But the question is whether Putin will be satisfied with this. His ambition has always been to restore Russia’s pride about its place in the world, ‘defeating’ the West in Ukraine would—in Putin’s worldview—do that.
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