I don't think Putin intends to go to war. I think that he sees the lack of strength in this administration, and the deep state that created it, and knows that he'll get what he wants (a lot of Ukraine, whether in rights to natural resources, bases, etc.) simply by looking like he's going to attack. Like Biden's old boss did with Crimea, it will be a matter of some military action combined with "diplomacy" to avert a full fledged war, and Ukraine will get whittled away again without need for an actual war. Biden will claim he kept the peace, Russia will get a lot more than it had, Ukraine will be further degraded as a potential adversary for Russian ambitions and the world will again see the difference between countries that have and will use real power and countries that are controlled by social justice warriors.
