(PBS NewsHour) Following a growing list of aggressive moves made by Russia against the West, what is Putin's plan? Kimberly Marten, a Russian scholar and professor at Barnard College and Columbia University joins Hari Sreenivasan to provide insight into what may be behind Putin's recent behavior.
Excerpt: "I think part of what’s going on is that Putin is trying to take attention off of the problems that the Russian economy is facing. The sanctions are working much better than many people predicted that they would, and they’re having real impact on the Russian oil industry, which is one of the major contributors to the Russian budget. And the United States and the Europeans are holding together on those sanctions, much better than people thought they were going to, and now, even proposing more sanctions. And so, I think that what Putin needs to do is create an enemy in order to justify what’s happening to the economy, to get people to be motivated by a patriotic fervor in supporting him."
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