Ukraine's surprise incursion leaves Putin scrambling to save face — and his territory

“He is upset that something like this could have happened,” said Callum Fraser, a research fellow in Russian and Eurasian security at the Royal United Services Institute, or RUSI, a London-based think tank. “One of the justifications that he routinely uses for the invasion of Ukraine is the security of the Russian state. The fact that Ukraine has launched this incursion into Russian territory, I think, is absolutely humiliating for him,” Fraser told NBC News.