Putin just called the bluff of the War Hawks who are trying to prop up their collapsing unipolar order.  By recognizing the independence of the “breakaway republics” of Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk, he is offering to protect them from the escalating shelling and shooting coming from the Ukraine side of the Line of Contact.  He said no matter what Russia did, the West would respond with sanctions, because their goal is not peace, but the destruction of Russia’s economy, to force a regime change there, which he will not allow.  The alternative is to organize a new security architecture — is anyone in the West listening?