Well, if you believe his rhetoric, he may go very far.
He made his so-called victory speech on the evening of March 1, and he was almost hysterical, with tears in his eyes. He did not speak about his victory over Zyuganov, Zhirinovsky, and the others. He spoke about his victory over “them”, that “they” wanted to destroy motherland Russia. They included the United States, particularly.
He sincerely hates the west, maybe first of all as an example of another political and economic model, and certainly he especially hates Georgia, whose successes are becoming more and more appealing to Russian people. He hates Ukraine because of the Orange Revolution and what it generated.
My personal opinion is that he will not dare do any aerial military operation, and I'll explain to you why. You in the west have enormous leverage on him. This leverage, not only on him but on all the Putin kleptocracy, are the multi-billion dollar accounts, assets, and real estate holdings in the west, in the United States, and so on. All of them are known, well known, not only to the special services of western countries but to all journalists. It's known in Russia.
I recommended several times to my western colleagues just to arrest, or to freeze, the accounts of two gentlemen—the multi-billionaire Abramovich, who lives in London, and the multi-billionaire Timchenko, who lives in Switzerland. Everybody in this world knows that these two gentlemen are Putin puppets and they are managing his financial empire. You have legislation against laundering capital gained through criminal activity. Only the political will from western leaders is needed to inflict a very serious blow on Putin's financial empire and consequently on his political empire and his political ambitions.