Here's one about Russia's red lines:
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Krutikov devotes his article to where these lines are. According to him, they include any further expansion of NATO eastward, especially involving Georgia and Ukraine, designed to encircle Russia. Instead, Putin’s first “red line” is that Ukraine, Georgia, Sweden and Finland must retain their “neutral status as ‘buffer countries.’”
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And a ninth is American support for “a ‘fifth column’” of opposition figures in the Russian Federation and especially any encouragement for demonstrations against the Putin regime.
Another one:
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“In his speech, Putin basically made it clear that from now on, Russia will act just like the United States does. “Why are Albanians permitted to do something in Kosovo … that Russians, Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars are prevented from doing in Crimea?”
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“Vladimir Putin has announced that existing borders in the former Soviet Union could be reexamined if a threat emerges to what the Russian president himself calls the ‘Russian world’,” says Russian political analyst Sergei Markedonov.
I suppose in the celebrations following the collapse of the Soviet Union, not much thought at the policy level was given to the consequences of dispersing ethnicies across many borders despite the world's collective experience in Europe and Africa since World War II. Some credit the post WW2 population transfers for Europe's stability (and some also argue the same for the success of the 'surge' during the second Iraq War). Are we entering a similar era for the Slavic world?
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However, the U.S. is not yet ready to accept Russia’s new foreign policy course. “We should not expect the West to recognize Ukraine as part of Russia’s sphere of influence. This would be a step backward in terms of the past 20 years in which Ukraine has been integrated into the transatlantic space,” says Andrew Weiss.
However, this position is not constructive and is fraught with new challenges. “The West, of course, can continue to refuse to negotiate, but this would further destabilize the situation in Europe. We must put an end to the uncertainty and unspoken issues that have persisted since the Cold War,” says Dmitry Suslov.
Several commenters here seem convinced that economic sanctions on Russia will be sufficient punishment to keep Moscow in check. I have my doubts. The Kremlin is not occupied by lawyers, businessmen, or technocrats like in most Western capitals. The stock market ticker is not correlated with political success. The danger is not in how to define the status of Russian power, but that Russian power is not fully integrated into the Washington-led economic system and therefore very few levers exist to compel specific policy choices in Moscow.