Putin can't get out of the corner he's painted himself into

Writing in the Financial Times, Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt said that the local media and its “pro-separatist frenzy” are central to the problem. But more will come out challenging Putin’s view of the world, such as a report that separatists operating anti-aircraft weapons, including the type suspected of being used to down the airliner, were trained on Russian soil. Then there is this Ukrainian-released tape of separatists suggesting that an operating crew was provided with the BUK surface-to-air missile system that they obtained from Russia, and is suspected in taking down the airliner. And again, there are reports of a direct link to the Kremlin.
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Given the shifting sands, Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russian security services at New York University, said that Putin may not be as locked in to his Ukraine policy as he might look—and that he has a record of changing his mind. He can back down “when he must and when he can,” Galeotti said in an e-mail exchange from Moscow, where he is on sabbatical. He cited Putin’s reversal in the case of blogger Alexei Navalny, who was imprisoned last year only to be almost immediately released. Such flip-flops, however, “go against the grain and, above all, he will need to be given or manufacture some face-saving formulation.”