No defence experts I talk to claim to be certain what Putin plans in Ukraine. What we know is: 1/ Russia launched a big military buildup, giving itself the ability a) break out of Crimea to the north and b) stage a landing on the Azov coast (map not mine h/t @mhmck)... 
2/ Ukraine’s president Zelensky looks out of his depth. He has called for UKR to be allowed to join NATO, which is a non-starter. I say this as someone highly critical of Russia’s geopolitics and internal repression....
3/ I am told the Ukrainian military preparations look currently shambolic, as they believe the USA will ride diplomatically to their rescue and, in any case, are numerically and technologically outclassed...
4/ Russian media proxies, here and in Moscow, are claiming that Zelensky threatened to invade Crimea. a) Crimea is illegally occupied by Russian invaders; b) Ukraine has zero military capability to do this. What he said was that Ukraine maintains its legal claim on Crimea...
5/ Why we’re really here? a) Zelensky launched a crackdown on Russian media proxies in Ukraine. B) Putin fears losing Belarus to a democratic revolution c) Having lost Trump as an ally, Putin needs to start making facts on the ground again d) Moldova...
6/ What can be done? NATO could in truth barely defend the Baltic. Two heavily armed members of NATO (Turkey/Greece) are in a face off over Libya/territory. Britain is cutting its army by 10,000. So the short answer is nothing. Warmongers dream on...
7/ The populations of Europe are having to stand by as the new Great Game is played out by semi-dictatorships and barely democratised regimes, from the Donbas to Syria and Libya and Turkey....
8/ Ultimately we're here because voters put a crook into the White House and a clown into Downing Street, allowing dictators like Putin, Erdogan, Xi to rip apart the rules based order...
9/ There's no technocratic or "market" solution to a deteriorating diplomatic order: but the will of ordinary people not to let themselves get drawn into big war can make a difference...
10/ The highest level discussions - Merkel and Macron with Zelensky etc - have been inconclusive, and the Western media is playing the whole crisis down as if to ignore it it will go away...
11/ What to watch: Belarus, where RU is tightening its control over the state; Moldova, where a pro-EU president is under attack from pro-Putin oligarchs; the State Dept, where nothing they are doing is actually working...
12/ What to do: promote democracy in Russia. Last time I was there there was a ready audience for progressive politics, but not for the corrupt democracies whose poster-boys look like Cameron/Sunak. So fight for democracy here as well!
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