If you think you understand what Putin’s doing in Ukraine, you’re not paying enough attention

Vladimir Putin has won in Ukraine. Russia is on the verge of getting de facto control of eastern Ukraine, destabilising the remainder, and establishing its president’s cherished Eurasian Union. The West is nowhere — weak, disunited, and out-strategised by a master of geopolitics.

Hang on, that’s all wrong. Crimea was the high-water mark of Putin’s neo-imperialist vision.