In the long run Russia will lose lots of gas and oil sales as other countries route fuel to Europe.
Putin really isn’t effectively strategic or smart. He is simply a smart bully. He knows where to pick his fights.
He won’t sneeze on a NATO country.
His plan is simple. 1. Control the Naval Yards via Crimea. Establish a logistical land bridge to Crimea via E.Ukraine.
He had the option to negotiate this access, but couldn’t resist a weak kid on the block.
The losers:
1. Any idiot in Crimea who is standing now and waiting for jobs and open markets to employ him and provide for his family. Five years from now...he’ll ask why the Russians won’t just hand them grocery money like they did in 2014, or help them start up companies, or have Russia buy products from them because Europe won’t.
2. The Putin team. At some weird point, a bunch of 180-odd ethnic groups in Russia asked the stupid question...if Crimea is acceptable for ethnic reasons to split off....why not Russian territories? Putin’s master planner will scratch his head and just say it wasn’t made to work like that. Russia is doomed to split into twenty-odd countries by 2024....all because of this.
3. The Russian billionaires. Because Putin used their natural gas as a weapon against Europe....the Germans got smart, helped Norway spin up it’s capabilities, and then told the Russians they didn’t need as much....and drove the Russian cash machine into the ground in less than twelve months. The billionaires came to ask Putin what the deal was, but he just arrested a few and sent them off to jail.
4. Finally, Russians around 2015, start to ask why their economy is stalled and stagnant. They start packing up and trying to immigrate into Europe....but they got smart and said no way. So, if you were in a bad Russian economy....the only place to go is Siberia. Sounds great....huh?