The lurid interpretation of Putin’s Plan is that he wants to restore the boundaries of the defunct Soviet Union and then roll on to Calais. This is nonsense. Russia is much more nervous of the expansion east of NATO and the EU. He has much more evidence of that actually happening than the reverse. What Putin wants is to halt that eastward expansion. Ukraine is his red line.
At the same time the Russians do not want to turn Ukraine into a battle ground like Syria. Russia warned the West what would happen if civil war broke out in Syria and has been proved right. China and Russia were anxious about the NATO intervention in Libya and were right again, as the mess in that country now underscores. The last thing the Russians want is a full scale civil war on their doorstep. They have not intervened decisively, which they could do easily, to back the separatists and carve out a new Russian Territory in Eastern Ukraine. What they are doing is to provide support sufficient to stop the separatists being beaten outright, so that they have the capacity to negotiate some kind of autonomous region, within the Ukrainian state. The big mistake Moscow is making is to pretend they are not involved, but the fact that they are changes very little.
The Ukraine crisis will not be solved long term, although it might be patched up short term, unless the West faces reality and starts a programme of dialogue with Moscow to reach a proper settlement, which will allay the anxieties of both West and East. It has been this long held view of this blog is that Russia should become a member of both NATO and the EU. Contrary to the rhetoric, the western sanctions are hurting the EU as much as they are hurting Russia. It is important for the Western economies to end this quarrel. There will be no return to growth in Euroland until they do.