Putin and Russia have been playing and winning a lot on the world stage in the last few years.
Russia and Iran have run circles around Obama and the United States, Western European leaders and Turkey in the battle over control of Syria.
Russia is clearly winning in Syria.
What, exactly the game is that Putin is playing in Ukraine is still an open question.
This first phase may simply be a reaction to events in Kiev that Putin had not anticipated, and was unable to control within the city of Kiev.
The elected members of the Ukraine parliment, elected in 2012, were unable to form a government from any single party, so in 2012 a coalition government ( a majority of the members of parliament ) was formed by a coalition between the pro-Russian party's members and some of the independent members of the Ukrainian Parliament.
After protesters were shot and killed by police snipers in March 2014 the pro-Russian party lost both some of it's own members and also some of it's independent coalition partners. The exact same members of parliament, those elected in the 2012 elections, formed a new majority government in March 2014, with some independent members of parliament, some former members of the pro-Russian party, and the members of all of the former opposition parties except for the Communist members of parliament. By any objective measure, be it the pro-Russian constitution of Ukraine, or the 2004 Constitution of Ukraine that was replaced by the pro-Russian constitution of Ukraine, the current majority parliamentary government of Ukraine, it's elected Prime Minister are valid.
Putin did not want to discuss issues with this new Ukrainian government, so Russia invaded to change the conversation, and, also to change the parties doing the negotiation.
Russia's invasion forced the change Russia was trying to achieve, and Russia is now negotiating the future of the people of Ukraine with the Germans, the British and the Americans. The legitimate, democratically elected parliamentary Ukrainian government, located in Kiev, has been cut out of the discussions on the future of Ukraine.
Recent History has shown that these countries ( Germany, GB and the United States ) are much more willing to sell free peoples in countries, countries that were formerly slave countries in the Soviet Union, back into slavery in a Russian empire, one might say much more willing, than the Government of Ukraine is willing to sell themselves into slavery.
The big game here, the long game if you will, is making the west appear weak compared to Russia, and Putin is receiving just the help he counted on from U.S. and Western European leaders in that regard. Obama, Merkle and Cameron are worth many divisions of troops to Putin.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -live.htmlGuardian Newspaper wrote:
0400 (GMT) - Obama spoke to Angela Merkel tonight about the situation in Ukraine and the possibility of Germany acting as a mediator. We're also starting to get some detail of the so-called "off ramp" the diplomatic offer that would allow Putin to de-escalate without losing face. It would basically involve Russian troops pulling back to their bases in Crimea, bringing their numbers below 11,000, and international monitors to assuage Russian concerns that its nationals would face persecution, according to White House officials.