On October 1939, just as the Second World War had begun, Winston Churchill stated: “I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.”

75 years and the annexation of Crimea in March 2014 later, the situation remains the same. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, once remarked that Vladimir Putin is living in a “parallel universe”. As people all over the world try to figure out the riddle that is Putin's mind, Churchill's key comes in handy again.

Putin’s signature style is “soft annexation”, which he used in the case of Georgia invasion and breakaway of provinces Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The idea is to use political, economic and military levers which cannot be considered a traditional invasion, and exploit ethnic conflicts in countries which were once a part of Soviet Union. The goal is to augment these tensions (seen as relics of the former Soviet Union's messy collapse) and to prevent these countries from moving closer to the West as well as gaining influence in former Soviet States