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Those who believe that the Kremlin will be satisfied with Crimea and will agree to return to a new “reset” do not understand the nature of the Russian personalized power and its logic that tries to prolong its life at the expense of breaking the rules and even destroying the world order.
Russia’s economic, political and strategic environment in the West is fast deteriorating. One obvious way to respond to this is to reach out to Asia and the Pacific.
All of Putin’s actions, such as annexation of Crimea, trying to suffocate Ukraine, and trying to contain the United States and West in general, are a response to his domestic agenda. To survive, Putin wants to return to the old militaristic Russia and to become a war president.
In Crimea, Putin will face the financial burden which the annexation will incur. Crimea’s case may seem to be manageable at first, but the expenditure will absorb all money and Russia’s already dwindling investment will be brought to nil.
Vladimir Putin’s policy is to do what he sees right, regardless of what others think about it. He is ready for sanctions and to accept the costs.
Ukrainian oligarchs face a very real threat of seeing parts of their business empires disrupted by a political crisis over which they have no control.
Moscow has long been unhappy about some of the rules of the game set after the end of the Cold War, such as the West’s dominance, but now it feels strong and confident enough to challenge them.
The Kremlin wants to legalize the annexation of Crimea to Russia as soon as possible because it is trying to present the world with an accomplished fact while the West is still confused and lacks effective means to stop Russia.
Most Crimeans probably do not realize it yet, but without a shot being fired and in the space of just a few days, Crimea has joined the list of European territories that live in the twilight zone of international sovereignty.
From the perspective of Putin and his associates, Ukraine is a red line and the West, in the form of NATO, was crossing it.