The Long Game for Donets

StrategyPage:

In eastern Ukraine Donetsk province is where most of the separatist activity is and appears to be the target of a deliberate Russian effort to annex another part of Ukraine. With Crimea now part of Russia, after a three month long operation, Russian GRU (Military Intelligence) spetsnaz (special operations) troops are now more active in Donetsk and are generally repeating what worked in Crimea. But Donetsk has twice the population of Crimea and a smaller proportion of Russians. Thus the separatist effort is encountering more resistance. But the ancient tactics of deceive, disrupt and displace are still working, just more slowly.

As discussed yesterday, a long game is exactly what Putin wants to play — give the West time to relax and get used to the current atrocity level before cranking it up a notch. If the West threatens to crank up the sanctions, then level off violence or learn how to endure or evade the new sanctions.

Lather, annex, repeat.