The question on everyone’s mind is what Putin has to gain by invading Ukraine. Eastern Ukraine is not especially rich with natural resources, although the country does have some of the deepest coalmines in Europe. As the coverage of the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 showed, that part of Ukraine does not have sophisticated infrastructure or industry.

As Vladislav Inozemtsev, director of the Centre for Post-Industrial Studies in Moscow and a visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, argued in March, taking Eastern Ukraine would actually hurt Russia. It would force Moscow to pay billions in subsidies to regional governments that are currently covered by Kiev.

“In seeking Ukraine’s eastern regions, Russia is fighting for an unjust cause in political terms — and a wrong one in economic terms. Lenin wrote that politics is the most concentrated expression of economics,” Inozemtsev wrote. “If Vladimir Putin were to heed Lenin, he would see that integrating eastern Ukraine and Crimea into Russia, or their emergence as quasi-autonomous client states, would cost Moscow tens of billions each year in subsidies and create competition with Russian metal-processing, chemical, tourist and other businesses.”