Robert Gates: “The President does not like having countervailing opinions, he does not like being disagreed with.”

He's going to insist on occupying all four of the eastern provinces of the Donbas.

I think the president is — based on what I read — is getting the sense that, as he put it, that Putin is 'tapping' him along.

Putin hasn't given up on any of his original goals in Ukraine.

Putin feels that he has a destiny to recreate the Russian Empire.