Article: "Putin wants Eastern Ukraine. Let him have it"

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As Vladislav Inozemtsev, director of the Centre for Post-Industrial Studies in Moscow and a visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, argued in March, taking Eastern Ukraine would actually hurt Russia. It would force Moscow to pay billions in subsidies to regional governments that are currently covered by Kiev.

“In seeking Ukraine’s eastern regions, Russia is fighting for an unjust cause in political terms — and a wrong one in economic terms. Lenin wrote that politics is the most concentrated expression of economics,” Inozemtsev wrote. “If Vladimir Putin were to heed Lenin, he would see that integrating eastern Ukraine and Crimea into Russia, or their emergence as quasi-autonomous client states, would cost Moscow tens of billions each year in subsidies and create competition with Russian metal-processing, chemical, tourist and other businesses.”

At the same time Putin would become even more isolated from the international community. His aggression would also likely lead European countries, which are spending less on defense, to reevaluate these decisions.

Edward Goldberg, a professor at Baruch College and the New York University Center for Global Affairs, said nothing has changed since March. By every standard of rational interests, invading Ukraine is a mistake for Moscow.

“Even if he gets Eastern Ukraine, what has he won?” Goldberg asked. “He will have pushed western Ukraine into the arms of the EU. He will have brought NATO back to life. He will have re-invigorated Germany as a power -- the major thing Russia has feared since the end of World War II -- and he will restart the debate of exporting American energy to the EU, something he does not want to happen.”

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