rather than engaging in bombastic rhetoric. Would any Russian leader let an unfriendly Ukraine control the Crimea, Black Sea, or Eastern Ukraine? The answer is no. What parts of the old Soviet empire has he absorbed? Virtually none. He wants a Ukraine that he can control, not absorb. He did this in reaction to events that he didn't want. It was a very logical step, a reactive step and not a planned one to reconstitute the Soviet Union.
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