WHAT IS RUSSIAN POLITICAL STRATEGY IN UKRAINE ?

What is Moscow’s goal for Ukraine?

1. To promote the federalization of Ukraine?
2. To create a chain of separatist enclaves throughout Eastern and Southeastern Ukraine?
3. To destabilize Ukraine to the point that its government is completely dysfunctional?
4. To create conditions that will make it impossible to conduct the May 25 election in large portions of Ukraine, thus undercutting the legitimacy of any future government of Ukraine?
5. To use Russian influence in the East to ensure that the new leadership team in Kiev accepts the Russian blueprint for a decentralized Ukraine banned forever from joining NATO?

At this point it is anybody’s guess. However, sooner or later Moscow will need to deal with someone in Kyiv, and will need a political strategy to end the crisis. Obviously, it will want to end the crisis on its own terms, but that too requires a goal and a strategy to get to it. A permanent revolution  in Ukraine can’t be in Russia’s interest. But an alternative to it has yet to emerge.