Janger: I don't see a scenario where Putin retires, he'd rather play poker than chess

Why does Russian President Vladimir Putin not want to leave Ukraine alone?

Maybe because it actually can't, according to the former head of the British foreign intelligence service MI6, Alex Younger.

In an interview with ABC, Younger said he doesn't see a scenario in which Putin steps down amid growing fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

"I don't see how he will retire and at the same time satisfy the expectations he set himself".

He also assessed that Putin would rather "play poker than chess" when considering different options.

British officials have previously assessed that inside Ukraine there are already collaborators of the Russian army participating in ongoing actions in the country.

The Ukrainian security service also said that there is a group of saboteurs in the country who are planning attacks in the border areas, and which are controlled by Russian special forces.

The Pentagon has previously accused Russia of planning to stage an attack on Russian-speaking residents of Ukraine and then use that as an excuse to invade Ukraine.

Russia denies it is planning an invasion of Ukraine, despite deploying more than 100.000 troops along the border.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the West is creating "hysteria" and that there is no plan to attack Ukraine.

However, since tensions in Eastern Europe are growing, Western analysts and diplomats fear that the geopolitical conflict will reach such a point that it will be impossible to avoid a conflict on the ground, and Putin has put himself in a position of no return.

Putin tried to strengthen Russia's influence in Eastern Europe after the Cold War.

A key element of that project is maintaining influence over Ukraine and preventing Kiev from joining NATO.

"Putin sees this balance of power as unacceptable and threatening for Russia. It is not privatized because it points to the close military, political and economic relations between Ukraine and the West - which is seen as an enemy of Russia," assess associates of the German Marshall Fund, Liana Fix and Michael Kimmage. "What Putin wants is to weaken those ties. And he realizes that he won't be able to achieve that by persuasion alone."

Ukraine's aspirations towards the West have long frustrated the Russian leader.

In 2008, Putin told then US President George W. Bush that "Ukraine isn't even a country."

After the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and support for Russian separatists in Ukraine, Putin declared that "Russians and Ukrainians are one people, that they all came from old Russia and that they cannot live without each other."

Last year, Putin wrote about the "historic unity of Russia and Ukraine," and that Ukraine can only be sovereign in partnership with Russia, while the West tries to weaken "Slavic unity."

The Russian separatists who came to the Ukrainian Donbas in 2014, mainly from Chechnya and Ossetia, had the goal of defending "mother Russia from NATO and regaining Ukraine."

They believe that the overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Putin's ally, was the oil of NATO, America and Europe, against Russia.

"NATO mistreated us in Georgia and now they are doing the same here, we have to stop them. This is the land of our ancestors. If you don't stop the fascists, they will multiply. When we finish this in Donbass, we will go to Kiev," said one fighter. .

The march on Kiev never happened, but the conflict in eastern Ukraine continues. About 15.000 people have died so far.