Vladimir Putin.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Getty Images, iStock)

Late Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered military forces into eastern Ukraine after delivering a genuinely deranged history lesson that blamed Soviet leaders Lenin, Stalin, and Khrushchev for creating Ukraine and claimed that the country has "never had a tradition of genuine statehood."

It is still unclear what Putin's war aims really are. Yesterday he announced the recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, putting those territories in legal and juridical limbo. Few countries outside of Russia's immediate orbit will recognize or establish diplomatic relations with these new states.

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David Faris

David Faris is an associate professor of political science at Roosevelt University and the author of It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics. He is a frequent contributor to Informed Comment, and his work has appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and Indy Week.