To the extent that it doesn't cost me anything either way, I'm...

To the extent that it doesn't cost me anything either way, I'm happy to accept Putin's word about his aims. I would suspect (though who can know for sure?) that his motives are a conglomeration of several factors. I wouldn't like to have to weight them, I might be wildly wrong about which ones were more, or less, important to him and his Government than my guess.