Could This be Putin's Big Tango?

Could This be Putin’s Big Tango?

Posted: February 23rd, 2022

By Rob Dannenberg

Rob Dannenberg served as chief of operations for CIA's Counterterrorism Center, chief of the Central Eurasia Division and chief of the Information Operations Center before retiring from the Agency. He served as managing director and head of the Office of Global Security for Goldman Sachs, and as director of International Security Affairs at BP. He is now an independent consultant on geopolitical and security risk.

OPINION – The diplomatic and military moves of world leaders can be akin to a tango, a basic pattern of steps incorporating long pauses and dramatic body positions. What’s playing out on the world stage between Russia and Ukraine is just that. But it could also be the move that Putin, who first served as Acting President of Russia in 1999, would like to become his legacy.

Following the expected accusations of ceasefire violations and alleged atrocities committed by Ukrainian forces against ethnic Russians in the separatist enclaves of the Donetsk Peoples Republic and Luhansk Peoples Republic, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent Russian troops into these republics as “peacekeepers.” The move followed the adoption by the Russian Duma of a resolution calling for the absorption of these republics into the territory of the Russian Federation.

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