Putin has backed up as far as he can. His back is against the wall. Putin cannot accept missiles being fired into Russia by the US and NATO. At this point only psychopaths would “test the waters” which means playing with nuclear armageddon. But psychopaths are in charge. The Ukraine conflict was prepared and unleashed by US neoconservatives in the belief that it would destabilize Russia and perhaps lead to the breakup of the Russian Federation. Putin should not have let it go as far as he did before he acted. Putin was too slow to realize that Washington intends Russia’s destruction.

Paul Craig Roberts