News Analysis There are a few ways to interpret the recent escalation of Russia’s military buildup in the border region with Ukraine, says Marcus Kolga, a senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. “In the best-case scenario, Putin’s aggressive military buildup in Ukraine’s eastern border is an attempt to intimidate the Ukrainian government and President Zelensky and send a message to [U.S.] President Biden,” Kolga said in an interview. “However, given the steep intensification of war propaganda in Russian state media, the multiple ceasefire violations along with the military buildup, it is entirely possible that Putin is preparing to invade and annex Donbas under the pretext of protecting Russian speakers in the region. As such, he will claim it is an internal Russian issue.” In 2014, in a process that led to Putin’s controversial annexation of Crimea, Russia sent troops to the Ukrainian border under the guise of testing their military …