Time Magazine just announced their annual award for Person of the Year. They’ve been doing this for so long that the award gets attention no matter how right or wrong people think Time is in its choice. It’s like the Oscars. They have that popular momentum. Even those making Time’s publicized “short list” for their award will make headlines like Oscar nominees.

All the attention surrounding this isn’t so much about Time getting it right, as it is about starting the conversation about the people who affected the world the most in 2014. That’s a fun conversation to have and ponder. And that’s why it has such staying power. Time Magazine is just the chosen catalyst for this discussion.

But while getting it right isn’t the most important thing, I do think it’s important for the magazine to live up to what the award is supposed to be for. Over the years, they seem to have drifted from their purpose: to recognize the man, woman, group, or concept that, according to Time, “had the most influence on the world during the previous 12 months.”

They aren’t doing what they’ve set out to do. So here at the The Periphery, I’m going to give it a shot.

I considered doing this last year. The Pope was awarded ahead of who I thought was the clear choice: Edward Snowden. But I understood the reasoning behind Pope Francis being picked. His presence did mark a monumental shift in the Catholic Church, and it seems every month he says something that turns lots of heads and gets the world talking.

This year, though, I can’t give Time the benefit of the doubt. Their “Person of the Year” went to a handful of people who fought the Ebola virus. Nothing wrong with honoring these heroes, but this award isn’t about the heroic; it’s about the influential. And the answer to the question of influence, to me, was already becoming clear since last spring and only crystalized as the year progressed. My choice did make Time’s short list, but that doesn’t necessarily mean much. Also making this list was NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who has zero influence outside the U.S.; Taylor Swift, who has zero influence to anyone over 35; and the Ferguson protesters, who’s influence is so new as to be impossible to know if they’ll even have any at all.

So for the sake of truly picking the most influential on the planet for 2014, ThePeriphery.com selects as their Human of the Year: Vladamir Putin.

This isn’t an honor. I’m not a Putin fan. But his actions last spring behind the scenes in invading and annexing Crimea flew in the face of the most powerful countries on the planet–right under their noses–and tested the policy and international relations of these nation’s politicians.

The whole Western world was put on alert with borderland, and largely powerless, Ukraine in the balance. This nation had already had been under popular turmoil at the beginning of this year. Known as the Ukrainian Revolution of 2014, their protests and riots took down their leader. The cause for this was the classic battle of Russia vs. The West. Did the Ukrainians want a pro-Russian leader or a pro-Western one? To the those living on Ukraine’s island, Crimea, their choice was made for them when pro-Russian forces took over the administrative centers of the local government with military force.

But then the people in Crimea voted and allegedly did so with a whopping 96% in favor of joining Russia. If even close to accurate, this was an interesting find, highlighting the allegiance of a lesser-known part of the world to a power infamous to us in the West. And so despite the supposed overwhelming desire of the Crimeans, political leaders in the West did not recognize their voice.

This wasn’t just about Crimea though. Nor was this just about the other regions of east Ukraine that pro-Russian forces are also attempting to take. The annexations of these relatively small pieces of land represent something much bigger. They put into the forefront the days many thought were behind them–invasions of Western nations to settle Russia vs. Western conflicts. It put Europe and the rest of the West into a time machine back to scarier days of the Cold War.

Yet this is 2014 defined by the internet and an evermore complicated distribution and international reliance on energy, business, and finance. This is supposed to be a world of greys, not black and white borders to cross with tanks. It’s supposed to be diplomacy and policy, as such entangled partnerships of trade and travel makes military action seem crude and outdated.

Indeed, an evermore connected world of travel entered the conflict with what is hopefully its horrifying peak. On July 17, Malaysia Airlines flight 17, a passenger jet carrying 283 travelers from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down flying over Ukraine by either pro-Russian or pro-Ukrainian forces.

In complete contrast to the plane attack, 2014 began with a Russian act of global diplomacy and good will: the Winter Olympics in Sochi. 2014 ends with raw confusion stirred up by the conflict that Putin seems to relish. Why take over these small chunks of land when Russia has so much undiscovered country to the east? Power, influence, unresolved history, because he can.

Putin’s behind-the-scenes actions aren’t just challenges over these pieces of land. They are the acts of someone putting pride before progress, reopening the wounds of an old conflict, and forcing the West to consider military in their backyards against an interdependent and powerful nation.