Long-time foreign policy and global trade columnist, "Spengler" (aka, David P. Goldman), weighs in on the outcome of events in Ukraine and Putin's Russia. He also agrees that option #3 - keeping a low boil in Ukraine - is in Putin's best interest.
http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2014/04/30/b...epage=true
(But given his invasion of Georgia, why not a partial occupation of Eastern Ukraine? I wouldn't rule it out.)
More importantly, Goldman sees a federal solution as the more likely outcome of all the Ukraine troubles. As a Russian protectorate? Or as an internationally recognized one? Maybe the first, first - the second, later, I'll speculate. Financially, the West (EU, Nato, and IMF), can ill afford to finance their wish for independence from Russia. Ukraine is much too poor to afford to do it herself.
And most importantly, if Putin can make a mega-billions Chinese investment into Russian development a quid pro quo for sending energy, timber, and metals to Asia - re-balancing the old Euro-supplier gambit - then Putin's Russian quest for more political independence through economic triangulation will succeed.
I agree with Goldman.
Foreign direct investment has run for the exits of Russia and may still result in a recession this year. Can this outflow be countered to turn the tide next year? Maybe that's what Putin's betting on.
Meanwhile, what's extraordinary is how irrelevant the US has become to the grand power politics of Eurasia. This may well change if the Republicans occupy the white House in a few years. But these precedents set by Putin are unlikely to be reversed this decade or after. If the vector outlined here (and in Goldman's column) succeed, Putin rules the roost for the foreseeable future.