country s population spoke russian as their first language. putin s dilemma is that ukraine is in slow motion escaping russia s grasp. in the last decade the country has become more independent, democratic and pro-western. the west has been cooperating and assisting in an ever greater measure but putin is also probably cautious of the reality that an outright russian invasion would create what he loathes most, a permanently anti-russian ukraine. his goal, then, is to get the americans and europeans to recognize that ukrainian membership in nato is a step too far. he also wants kyiv to recognize that in the long run it has to have good by which he means respectful, even subservient relations with russia. for the west, ukraine is an important noble cause, but not
secession. to the liberal reformer gorbachev russian leaders have regarded ukraine as fundamentally tied to moscow. ukraine s first two presidents while asserting the country s newfound independence were careful not to break too sharply with moscow. according to a census conducted in 2001 almost 30% of the country s population spoke russian as their first language. putin s dilemma is that ukraine is in slow motion escaping russia s grasp. in the last decade the country has become more independent, democratic and pro-western. the west has been cooperating and assisting in an ever greater measure but putin is also probably cautious of the reality that an outright russian invasion would create what he loathes most, a permanently anti-russian ukraine. his goal, then, is to get the
daily. and so when we are talking about an invasion we are talking about the large scale escalation of a war that has been going on. this is an important thing to keep in mind because, for ukrainians, it is what is actually going to change, for one thing. how do we know there is a qualitative shift and what is happening to us? but also there is a real sense of, on the one hand, people realizing how awful the possibility of a bigger warriors. and on the other hand, there is a real cohesive sense of national mobilization. and american and kremlin promoted tropes that are prevalent in the u.s. media, such as western ukraine s pro western, eastern ukraine is russian speaking and pro russian whenever accurate. but they were much less accurate than they were eight years ago. because after living with war