“Putin has played his side of the chessboard with skill, keeping Ukraine in chaos and on the verge of bankruptcy. Putin doesn’t want to conquer Ukraine: he wants to create a running sore of permanent instability on the West’s eastern flank. That is precisely what I would do in his position, and what I predicted would happen in February 2014: “[The] West [has] a limited number of choices. The first is to do nothing and watch the country spiral into chaos, with Russia as the eventual beneficiary. The second is to dig deep into its pockets and find US$20 billion or more to buy near-term popularity for a pro-Western government – an unlikely outcome. The third, and the most realistic, is to steer Ukraine towards a constitutional referendum including the option of partition.”