Thread by @gemluvr257

What Does Putin Really Want? #SmartNews politico.com/news/magazine/…

For Putin, the example of a free, independent Ukraine on Russia's border is too inspiring a model for his own people who might eventually demand something similar at home, and that would mean his ouster.

So for him, Ukrainian independence and democracy is an existential threat to his personalistic autocracy. The Kremlin's endgame, beyond ensuring the survival of Putin's regime, is to create a multipolar world where autocratic Russia and

rising China challenge Western liberal hegemony; the goal is nothing short of the establishment of a new global order where might is right, and state sovereignty, individual rights and freedoms, and human rights are wrong.