[Chico23231]

The funny thing about this situation is Putin could end the instability in Ukraine pretty easily if he truly wanted to. He is just gettin off now and I really think his is measuring more the Europeans than the us. He has his eye on the prize and think he has a lot of wheels in motion not only Ukraine but other ex soviet states. He may feel comfortable enough with his economy to go for it, but he is certainly monitoring the internal pressure upon the Russian economy to see if it could handle more stress.

Also think Putin knows he has a window with Obama but he might not get the same advantage with a republican in the White House.