Politics

Inside the Confused Mind of Vladimir Putin

It is not at all clear what President Vladimir Putin's ultimate goals are in the current crisis over Ukraine. His ambitions might be limited to securing Crimea and the Donbass for Russia and getting the West to accept this state of affairs. Or he might want to gain control over more of Ukraine, if not all of it. Or he might aim at nothing less than undermining NATO and the European Union through further aggressive moves in the Baltic states and elsewhere that Western governments will not be able to agree on how to respond to. Or perhaps he himself is not sure.