Putin won’t annex Donbas. It’s much more useful to him to have it inside Ukraine and where stage manage events at his leisure.
Yaa, good point, still though it is easy to see how he is using history and the Sudeten crises to one up the wets, our “leaders” are feckless bafoons.
Putin is a bad guy but he is not a bad leader. Some may hate me saying that but one underestimates him at their own peril.
“Putin won’t annex Donbas. It’s much more useful to him to have it inside Ukraine and where stage manage events at his leisure.”
It depends on if he succumbs to his nationalist voice or his geopolitical voice. If the former, he will annex the breakaways; if the latter, he can leverage his control of Donbas but still strut that he is not an imperialist.