Russian President Vladimir Putin's ex post facto request Saturday to the Russian parliament to approve the use of military forces in Ukraine should not really have come as much of a surprise.
There were few who had any doubts that the uniformed men who seized airports on the Crimean Peninsula on Friday were Russian forces. The big question, however, is: What does Putin actually want?
Attempting to explain the idea of modern Russia in his 2002 book, "The End of Eurasia," political scientist Dmitri Trenin took inspiration from the poetry of Yevgeny Yevtushenko. "A border in Russia," in Yevtushenko's words, "is more than a border."