As in Putin wants the Donbas and won’t compromise
Mainly because of the strategic master stroke of declaring those four administrative regions to be within Russia before they had been captured, now he's stuck in a stupid position of his own making where he has to accept some redrawn boundaries or another (at current rate of progress) 25? years of grind and steadily diminishing 'rewards for heroism' that were being given to widows of Russian soldiers which were already somewhat paltry, along with none of his people seeing much change of anything domestically except shortages and higher prices.
One explanation I read was that they all vote for him anyway because the one thing that Russians are absolutely best at, is hating Russians, second only to the philosophy that success as a nation is achieved not by making anything better but by making everybody else worse.
Also because he's protecting them from the vast hordes of invading nazis which surround Russia, 'nazis' still translating to 'anyone without a communist origin story' which I believe sufficiently covers China, North Korea and Russia itself.
This is an interesting writeup of how Russia's oligocracy works in relation to the war, the options of tea and/or fenestroika of course always remain available but to properly control you need to threaten their money too.
Western sanctions have failed to turn the uber-rich into opponents, and Putin's policies have turned them into silent backers.
www.bbc.co.uk
strange that the region is suddenly safe for their visit.
