Russian President Vladimir Putin has been very transparent about his fundamental objectives in invading Ukraine: He needs to disarm the rustic, sever its ties to the NATO army alliance and finish the Ukrainian other folks’s aspirations of becoming a member of the West.
Whilst guessing precisely how he plans to execute that plan is a special topic, historical past can function a information for working out Putin’s conceivable endgames.
Crimea annexation 2.0
If Russian forces are ready to seize Ukraine’s port town of Odessa, it is conceivable to consider a land bridge extending the entire method throughout southern Ukraine, probably even linking Transnistria — a separatist enclave in Moldova, the place Russian troops are stationed — to Odessa, Crimea and southern and jap Ukraine.
A partitioned Ukraine
If Putin has partition in thoughts, Galician Ukraine and town of Lviv — on the subject of the Polish border — may probably be part of a form of rump Ukrainian state, whilst Russia focuses its attentions at the east of the rustic.
A professional-Russian state
Western intelligence officers warn that Russia is making plans to topple Ukraine’s democratically elected govt, changing it with a puppet regime. Putin has recommended he sees the present democratically elected govt in Ukraine as illegitimate, and lamented the ousting of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. Ukraine does produce other politicians who could be desperate to fill the ranks of a pro-Russian govt, put in perhaps via pressure.
An uneasy career
Russia says it does not wish to be an occupier, however it is simple to consider a state of affairs the place Russia tries to impose its type of heavy-handed rule on Ukraine. That may be laborious tablet for Ukrainians to swallow as they have got unfastened press, freewheeling native politics and a practice of side road protest. Within the Russian political machine, authentic opposition protests are in large part banned, or very tricky to prepare.
A violent career
Putin has had no downside backing violent native strongmen with scant regard for human rights. His personal political upward push started with the pacification of Chechnya, a breakaway republic in Russia’s north Caucasus.
A republic of worry
Russia has a fearsome home safety equipment that jails and persecutes dissidents and assists in keeping probably difficult warring parties out of politics. Ukrainians residing in Crimea — which was once occupied via Russia in 2014 and annexed after a referendum broadly observed as a sham — skilled first-hand what it is love to are living in a state the place the FSB, Russia’s state safety provider, is omnipotent.
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