Putin doesn’t need military success in eastern Ukraine or further advances into Ukrainian territory to get his way.

Today’s riots in Kiev remind us that revolution is much easier than real governance and state-building.

Radio Free Europe has published a fascinating interview with an Armenian volunteer sent by Russia to eastern Ukraine to fight as a separatist. It’s a fascinating look inside Putin’s ongoing war in Ukraine.

While most news coverage tends to look at the state of Ukrainian street protests to gauge how things are going, there is lots of evidence that the real power in Ukraine rests with the zillionaires and billionaires who emerged from the twilight of Communism, getting their mitts on everything that wasn’t nailed down in the country. There are signs that the debate among the oligarchs is tilting toward the EU affiliation, but this may have more to do with power dynamics than the size of crowds on the street.