Don't these fools realise that they are just stoking a fire they just cannot control
Hardly, as said before, I think some basic armed peace keeping troops could call his bluff. A few outside aircraft patrolling Ukraine airspace would do it as well.
Putin has been ahead of us the whole time, he judged we would just stand by and p!ss our pants. "Oh trade sanctions, no Germany and the US corporations will get hurt". Intervention, "Oh no it might turn into world war 3" "Oh its not our problem"
He must be sitting there laughing. He doesn't want a showdown, his troops arn't wearing any identifing markings, when pointed out that the vehicles had Russian number plates from specific units, they have been removed.
He's playing a game, whilst he gets control and gets Irregulars in control, read Serbian mercenarys.
It looks like again, after all of last century, we are still allowing the big players to just trade off countrys like chips