Steve LeVine: Putin isn’t invading Ukraine — he’s sabotaging it
With Crimea in hand, Russia appears to be using powerful tools—from natural gas price hikes to a threat of the further loss of territory—to secure influence in the rest of Ukraine in advance of May 25 presidential elections. Russian president Vladimir Putin’s strategy seems to be not to actually invade Ukraine, as the West fears, but to assert dominance through levers already on the ground, as he did with Crimea.