Paul A. Goble: Putin’s shell game with Crimea intended to cut importance and costs of the anschluss
A man walks past a graffito depicting Russia's President Vladimir Putin in the centre of the Crimean city of Simferopol on August 13, 2015.
Vladimir Putin's decision to disband the Crimean Federal District which he created after the Russian seizure of that Ukrainian peninsula in 2014 is intended to reduce the attention of Russians to the rising and unmet costs of what had been the centerpiece of his foreign policy, according to Vitaly Portnikov.
