I was thinking, maybe Putin is looking to create a north and south Ukraine, just like in the Korea war, where they north got their butt kicked and china had to enter the fray. Lookin at the internal divisions of Ukraine as a country gave me that idea:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admini...e_4_colors.svg
No doubt putin wants the two secessionists oblasts, plus all the black sea coast and then up to the frontier with Hungary and Slovakia to form south Ukraine. Of course north Ukraine can keep Chernobyl, putin is not the kind of person to clean up after any mess created by the USSR.
This would plenty of provocations for Ukraine to go after the secessionists and could take years to complete, but putin isn't going anywhere. They are already telling civilians to flee into Russia, they have already given Russian passports to anyone who asks in the Donbas region.