“The Russians will continue to operate methodically and with deliberation.”
YES: Putin will continue his pattern of “Transnistrian” policy to continue to create controls ‘zones’ of frozen conflicts in Moldova (Transnistria region), Georgia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia), and in Ukraine annexed Crimean peninsula and the Donbas.
This wider pattern of created separatist conflicts creates corruption and criminality as ‘Trojan horses’ to block progress in reform-minded periphery countries.
Putin tactics are part of his geopolitical strategy creating conflict zones to prevent countries from entering NATO and/or integrating into the European Union because it CONFLICTS with Putin’s imperialistic plan to regain strategic points of the LOST RUSSIAN EMPIRE.
‘In Ukraine’s South, Fierce Fighting and Deadly Costs’
https://archive.ph/MtHyd#selection-383.0-383.52