Has Vladimir Putin lost the plot? The German Chancellor Angela Merkel certainly appears to think so, having (allegedly) claimed that he is "living in another world"; many others have questioned the sanity of Russia’s dramatic intervention in Crimea. Not a bit of it. We can certainly question the rationale for Russia’s actions, disagree with their execution, and be justifiably worried about the outcome. But one thing that this ploy is not is irrational. Although Russia’s precise aims are buried within the secrecy of its decision-making processes, Russia’s general approach to Ukraine has been evident for years, and its actions are consistent with what it sees as being at stake in the region. Indeed, the West might well have predicted them much earlier.

This is not at all to justify an illegal intervention which breaks international law and several treaties, and a forthcoming referendum to be held under virtual martial law. Just to say that understanding Russian motivations is the first stage in resolving the conflict. These motivations are not devoid of logic, even if the Russian response to the crisis is marked by disinformation. They are far less about expanding Russia’s global reach than they are about Russian domestic politics, and they show Russia’s strength far less than its weakness.

History obviously looms large in Russian thinking about Ukraine. Kievan Rus' was the proto-Russian state, and many Russians identify the Christianisation of Rus by Prince Vladimir in 988 as a founding moment of modern Russia. Since 17% of Ukraine’s population are ethnic Russians and circa 45% speak Russian at home, and that Crimea was gifted to Ukraine only in 1954, one can understand why Russians have found it hard to envisage Ukraine as an independent state (even if their version of history neglects the role of Lithuania, Poland and the Tatars before the Russian Empire). Even under nominally democratic Boris Yeltsin, Russia continued to regard Ukraine as part of its wider "sphere of influence", with defence of Russian "compatriots" abroad as its right. Rhetorical commitments about international law notwithstanding, many Russian politicians share Putin’s patronising view that Ukraine is "not even a state".

Arguably, geopolitics trumps history, because it is Ukraine’s current population (46 million) and size (bigger than France), not its past role, that underpin Putin’s quest for greater global status. Just as Ukraine’s independence vote in December 1991 marked the final act of the USSR, so the flight of the (relatively) pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovych on 22 February marked the potential end of Putin’s aim to create a Eurasian Economic Union – not a new USSR as some have said, but at least a regional power bloc to rival the EU. Not just that, but Sevastopol remains Russia’s only warm-water port.

The Russian view is also imbued with a deep suspicion of Western intentions. From the authorities’ perspective, their intervention in Ukraine is not "imperialist aggression" but a defensive reaction to a loss of their traditional status. Putin has seen the EU and NATO move relentlessly into the former communist world – an advance tolerated until it resulted in a tussle for influence in what Moscow still regards as its backyard, first Georgia, now Ukraine. Russia still sees such an advance through a zero-sum lens – the West wins, Russia loses. Moreover, it sees the West as deeply hypocritical – a concern with liberalisation and democratisation barely concealing destructive intervention in countries’ internal affairs – yesterday Iraq, today Ukraine, tomorrow Russia? Certainly, Russia grossly distorts such arguments (according to Putin, the Ukrainian revolution is a Western-backed fascist putsch engineered by the West). Yet, there is an undeniable kernel of truth: do those who supported the Iraq war now decry Russia’s intervention? Is the constitutionality of the new Ukrainian government dubious? Does it contain members of the radical right? Many Western observations dismiss such arguments reflexively. But the West has played a role in provoking Putin by turning Ukraine into a proxy East-West conflict: promising NATO membership against the wishes of the bulk of the population; presenting EU accession as an East-West choice etc.

Russia’s intervention in Crimea is thus strongly influenced by history, geopolitics, and a recent experience of Western perfidy. But rather than an aggressive attempt to rekindle a lost empire, it looks more like a panicked defensive attempt to prevent Ukraine escaping Russia’s orbit forever. Although Putin is still relatively secure at home, his popularity is in slow decline, and since 2012 he has shored up support by a combination of increasingly repressive practices and a new-found staunch conservatism, a policy that projects strength but conceals a certain isolationism and paranoia. His new Eurasian Economic Union was to be a symbol of Russia’s enhanced Eastern direction. The overthrow of Yanukovych was thus a major blow to Russia’s global standing, but also has clear implications for Putin’s domestic position. If a corrupt and repressive but democratically elected leader can be expelled, this gives obvious succour to Russia’s beleaguered domestic opposition. Hence Russia’s attempt to portray the Ukrainian protestors as paid fascists who are intrinsically inimical to Russia. Although the Russian elite has kept a united front, rumours abound that the decision to intervene was taken by a small coterie of people, was largely improvised and reactive as Moscow struggled to keep up with events.

Be that as it may, the fact that Russia has intervened so soon after its successful Olympics, shows that Putin considers the loss of Ukraine as an existential blow; for its sake he will take any reputational damage and economic sanctions to follow. It is most likely that Russia "merely" aims to consolidate control over Crimea rather than annexe it completely: a mini-Russia within Ukraine would act as a "spoiler" to pressure and if necessary destabilise any new government in Kiev, Crimea within Russia becomes just another restive region needing subsidy. Putin judges that (as with his 2008 intervention in Georgia), the West is too hypocritical and divided to risk any meaningful measures that would harm its own interests (such as targeted economic sanctions or no-strings aid to Ukraine). Putin’s critique of the West may be exaggerated and hyperbolic, but it is up to us to prove him wrong.