https://news.yahoo.com/putin-gets-green-light-deploy-164113297.html
Putin is playing global political chess, and he is reportedly quite proficient at the board game as well. He is also trained in Ju-Jitsu, physically using the momentum of his opponent.
A procession of Western allied leaders have gone to Moscow and emphasized "sovereignty". Vlad the Imposter then produced a TV Show flipping the sovereignty principle by recognizing two insurgencies he created as sovereign states. This means that shots fired in the prior "civil war" are now invasions, for which the newly sovereign states can request external military aid under International Law.
Therefore sanctions for "legal military aid" now violate International Law, and the new "perpetrators" can be sued in the World Trade Court in addition to Russian tanks, artillery, and missile launchers rolling across the Dombas region. If Ukraine fires into their former provinces, that is a provocation that justifies full scale invasion of all of Ukraine from land, air and sea - despite the ethnic Ukrainian majority in the Dombas.
Watch for Russian "supervised" elections to put in Putin puppets like Lukashenko and Yanukovich.