to the west was too much for putin. he has a stance, kind of a fanciful idea, he can build a our ray shan union to be a counter-point to the european union. he knows it would be impossible without ukraine. what does he plan for ukraine? it appears crimea is under his control. there would be a referendum so the de facto authority is then bolstered by some kind of de jour authority. is he presumably going to try to influence the rest of ukraine through various kinds of intelligence operations, money, things like that, bribing politicians? that has been what they ve done in the past after all. i think that is. those are the sources of their influence. this is a full-fledged black op in ukraine right now with multiple elements to it, information warfare, military action, and political action including the putting on this referendum. what i think the goal here is to