THE eND COMES FOR EVERYONE, VLAD:

For Putin, Ukraine has been the outlier. Ukraine has been pursuing freedom and democracy determinedly, though haltingly, on its own, and it has had a good deal of success. The fact that this democratic process has been playing out on Putin's doorstep, perhaps most notably with the 2014 "Revolution of Dignity" against his stooge, then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, is terrifying to Putin.

In the information age, a state of terror such as the one that Putin's Russia has become, cannot countenance states of consent, especially next door. It is Ukraine's constitutional order -- with its independent (though still troubled) judicial system, freedom of the press, multiparty politics, largely legitimate elections,  vibrant civil society, and general respect for human rights -- that Putin cannot tolerate, lest it provide too tempting an example for democratic activists in his own country who have vehemently opposed him at great risk to their lives and to the public in general that shares so many ties to the people in Ukraine. The "peaceful coexistence" of the Cold War is, in this respect, not acceptable to Putin.

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