He will very shortly make moves to take the grey area in this map.
There will be a full blown war if Putin moves on Mykolayiv and Odessa. He will stop with Crimea and let his pavement apes lose to reek havoc in Donetsk and Kharkiv. He wants an unstable Ukraine while he consolidates the Crimean gains.
He was pretty nasty to the Georgians, otoh, which I also have not forgotten.
It's all pipelines in the end, isn't it?
No doubt about it.
But perhaps we're reading the map-colors differently--I see Mykolayiv and Odessa in a white area. The grey area I'm looking at contains Donetsk and other heavily Russian-inhabited sectors sitting cheek-by-jowl on Putin's border.
Vlad is tasting nectar of victory in Crimea--he knows the EU & USA are war-weary toothless wonders full of hot air. If he plays the game as he's been doing, he can move his borders carefully and safely Westward to keep that wonderful flavor in his mouth.
Putin won't be doing a re-build of the old USSR overnight--but don't be surprised if the Donetsk region and surrounding territory in East Ukraine is in play by U.S. voting time this November.
Remember: Putin has said that the greatest tragedy of the 20th Century was the break-up of the Soviet Union. There's little doubt that his intention is to correct this terrible bust-up and play Humpty-Dumpty as the 21st Century redeemer of Lenin's great dream.
I predict Polish troops move into Western Ukraine if that region is threatened.