intervention in an area that was not historically part of russia's core security sphere, syria, has been limited mostly using russian air power. in the case of the invasion of ukraine, putin's first effort was to bribe ukraine with an offer of $15 billion in loans and lower prices for gas, a reward in a sense after it rejected an association agreement with the european union. yanukovych accepted the slight, igniting protests then fled his country. then putin annexed crimea. in recent years he has tried to get the president of ukraine volodymyr zelensky to make a deal on the eastern ukrainian region of donbas, home of the highest proportion of russian speakers in the country and where russian army regulars have been fomenting an insurgency. he tried to get the germans to accept a referendum on