As bad as the war in Ukraine is now, it's likely to get worse
“Every time you think, ‘No, he wouldn’t, would he?’ Well, yes, he would,” Fiona Hill, a former White House expert on Russia, said in anPutin’s intentions toward Ukraine should have come as no surprise. He has publicly demanded since 2007 that the country be returned to some form of Russian control. The CIA warned that he might invade Ukraine as early as 2008, Hill noted. Refugee flows from Ukraine mount.
Putin may not want to occupy all of Ukraine’s territory, she added, but he may want to divide it into “a fractured, shattered Ukraine.”The Western response is aimed at raising Putin’s costs until he — or Russia’s military brass, its oligarchs and the Russian public — decide that their losses from the war outweigh any benefits. That, too, could take a long time.
“Sanctions will worsen Russia’s position in its long-run competition with western countries,” Edward Fishman, a former State Department expert now at Columbia University, told me. “We have zero interest in enhancing Russian power.” But an original goal of these sanctions was to persuade Moscow to change course. To accomplish that, the United States needs to offer Russians the prospect of at least some sanctions relief if they withdraw their forces.