Russian President Vladimir Putin has taken a gamble on Ukraine and is betting that U.S. leader Barack Obama will blink first.

Wounded by a personal political defeat in a battle for influence over Russia's Slavic neighbor, Putin is fighting back, and presenting the crisis as a question of symmetry.

In his view, the West "stood by" and allowed armed men to direct events in the capital Kiev — now he is "standing by" as armed men extended their control over the Crimea region.