Although Putin’s recent rhetoric suggests he believes Ukraine is an illegitimate state which should be returned to Russia, it is more likely Putin would seek to control Ukraine indirectly through a puppet government.
The history of regime change, however, is littered with catastrophes. The recent examples of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya leap to mind, but they are not isolated cases.
Consider the year 1979, during which three regime changes occurred. In Cambodia, a Vietnamese armored blitzkrieg of the sort Russia has launched in Ukraine ousted Pol Pot and his murderous Khmer Rouge regime….
