pcr thinks the putin blew it when he had the chance; 

The Ever Widening War

Paul Craig Roberts

RT reports that the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service has concluded that the West is planning to prevent a Russian victory by sending 100,000 NATO troops to occupy Ukraine.  https://www.rt.com/russia/608376-svr-west-kiev-troops/ 

I doubt the 100,000 NATO soldiers will have any more success than the 600,000 dead Ukrainian ones, but the threat of deploying NATO soldiers is more proof that I was correct that Putin’s slow-moving limited military operation would provide endless time for the West to get involved and progressively widen the conflict until it is spun out of control. We are now at that point with insane Washington, Britain, and France striking Russia with missiles and planning to deploy troops.  All of this could have been avoided if Putin had done what every commander should have done and struck hard and fast to quickly end the conflict.

Putin preferred the goody two-shoes role, and the consequence was that the West was convinced that Russia was too weak or too lacking in confidence to win if the West backed Ukraine.  Putin has let the gradual widening of the conflict go on for three years, and the world has been brought face-to-face with the possibility of nuclear war. To avoid it, Putin has to carefully craft his response to Western missile attacks on Russia and to give advance warning so that enemies in the target area are not killed. These are not responses that the West will find convincing..........more........