Russia's Emperor Has No Clothes

There is widespread agreement that Putin stumbled badly with his plans for “Novorossiya”—the archaic, Tsarist-era term for Eastern Ukraine that he and his propagandists have dusted off. After the quick success in Crimea, met with toothless and fairly muted outrage from the West, Putin apparently hoped to use the same modus operandi in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions: having a motley crew of disaffected locals and Russian “volunteers” seize power by taking over city and regional government buildings, hold referendums and declare independence. His goal may not have been annexation—a bit too much even for the accommodating international community to swallow—but gaining enough leverage to keep Ukraine cowed, demoralized, and unfit for European Union partnership.