His arms deals have included tanks, armoured vehicles, heavy weapons and, as the passengers and families of MH17 discovered to their cost, anti-aircraft missile batteries.
Now an emboldened Putin, undeterred by a weak Western response, is sending in Russian military forces. The first major force went in disguised as an aid convoy in white military vehicles.
Since then, the Russian separatists have suddenly gained ground - and have miraculously learned how to fire complicated artillery with such precision they sank a Ukrainian naval vessel at sea.
A second such convoy recently rolled into Ukraine - no doubt to resupply and reinforce the invaders.
Putin is now fighting a war, Ukraine is trying to hold his troops back, and the West is doing little to help.
It is 1930s Europe all over again as the West stands back and replays the appeasement game which 80 years ago allowed Adolf Hitler to steal country after country and place them under Nazism's dark cloak.
If the West gets involved militarily, Putin says he has nuclear weapons to use.
Pah!
Typical threat from a former Soviet Union thug.
And it should not be tolerated by Nato's leaders who, it seems, are finally realising they need to show some cojones and have begun to position more troops and military equipment in eastern Europe.
But not, sadly, in Ukraine.
They should immediately welcome Ukraine into the Nato alliance and, by doing so, put real pressure on Russia to withdraw from that country.
Russia will not stand against Nato. Its armed forces may be great at invading small countries like Georgia and Ukraine, but against the West it will back down like a beaten cur.
If the West doesn't act then Ukraine will be split up and the nervous Baltic States of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania , as well as Belarus and Moldova, will likely be the next targets of Putin's greedy land grab.
We don't need another Cold War so Russia needs to be stopped, by force if needs be.
• While you are reading this column I will be wandering around the Solomon Islands on a photographic assignment.
I was really looking forward to the trip as The Solomons has always struck me as a place to get away from the world. Clear waters, white sands and - for military history buffs - the site of some of the nastiest fighting of the Pacific War in WorldWar II. You find the wreckage of tanks and aircraft lying all over and the waters between Guadalcanal and New Georgia, which have so many sunken ships there it has been renamed to Ironbottom Sound.
Now being an exotic destination I had to have a series of jabs before I went - Hepatitis A, typhoid, tetanus - and that got me thinking about what else lay in wait for me on the islands to the east of Papua New Guinea.
I can live with the snakes - we had three deadly varieties around my Melbourne home - but they have one thing that I am out of practice dealing with and that's extremely big spiders.
Now, spiders do not usually worry me as I was the guy who would usher large huntsmen into icecream containers and take them outside away from the shrieks of the gals in the house.
But these bird-eating things are very large and hairy.
I was always quite pleased to see the first huntsman of a Melbourne spring as it got you on your guard and reminded you the eight-legged guys were up and about again.
And remember, the bigger they are the more easily you can hear them wandering about the house ... heh, heh, heh.
Anyway, I shall be telling you all about the Solomons when I get back.
In the meantime visit www.youtube.com and enjoy a hilarious prank about a guy who put his dog into a giant spider suit and terrified folk in his town.
It is an absolute hoot.
Do a Youtube search on "mutant giant spider dog (sa wardega)" and enjoy yourselves.
Hopefully I won't encounter anything so big on my travels.
richard@richardmoore.com
• Richard Moore is an award-winning Western Bay journalist and photographer.
