There is no way he can win the war against Ukraine now, even if does use tactical nukes or chemical weapons.
Just for perspective only in the past year did I finally hear a description of just what a tactical nuke is. And I just learned a little bit more by googling. . It is a "little" nuclear bomb. The size used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, although they can be much more powerful. Somehow that just isn't what I would call small or little. Hard to call any nuclear weapon small or limited, imho. . That's all. I never really felt the need to know exactly how small they are or how big they could be. They somehow just sounded small whenever mentioned in conversations on matters that may find them useful or needed. They have been mentioned a lot recently. Perhaps I am the last person around these parts to know something like this as I usually am. So forgive me if I mentioned the already well known and obvious.
His army has been defeated; all he has left is nuclear weapons.
what is putin's goal? (remember he is kgb) occupation and oppression you wouldn't use a such weapon or messy technology on a piece of real estate that you covet he is obviously forced into the long game using energy and other commodities and any alliance with other authoritarian regimes making people suffer, especially innocent peaceful people is his modus operendi submission and surrender is the preference how does he get there? destroying necessary goods and services like electricity, food, water, shelter, etc. psych tactic to break the will of the victims all the while controlling the media narrative at home through manipulation the russian people are being force fed a steady stream of ukrainian dehumanization agitprop whipping up some hatred and bloodlust
There is no way he can win the war against Ukraine now, even if does use tactical nukes or chemical weapons. As the Ukrainians put it, this just raises the cost of fighting for freedom but in no way changes their determination to fight for it. They are not going to roll over and play dead now that they know they can and will win.
So this leaves Putin's primary goal to be to stay in power at home by projecting an image of a grand-daddy tsar who is looking after the best interests of Russia. But this is getting to be an increasingly difficult thing to sell to the Russian public now that he has trashed the military, made Russia look weak in the eyes of the rest of the world and had his economy ring-fenced by the rest of the global economy. So he's resorting to the victim-of-NATO narrative that plays so well at home with the propagandists hyperventilating at every opportunity. But I doubt everyone in Russia is buying it.
Most importantly, he's getting quite a lot of criticism from the right-wing/nationalists for cocking it up so badly. They still have a free reign to voice their opinions it seems. And this dissension will be confusing the silent majority who generally avoid getting involved in politics.
So Putin's days are numbered. Not because the Russians are suddenly going to turn into Europhiles and create a model western democracy, but because the nationalists are so pissed with the widespread incompetence of both the military and the political leaders. The big question will be what or who follows Putin and how will they ever manage to MARA. My guess is they will fail and Russia is going to break up into smaller dominions sooner or later. And I bet China is not averse to the idea of reabsorbing a large swathe of Siberia within its hegemony. Likewise, Turkey no doubt would like to expand its influence on the Turkic states.
Putin wanted to be remembered as the guy who reunited the great Russian empire. Instead he is going to be remembered as the guy who killed it.
Seems things could go either way.
Russia has the resources to continue, slowly pounding away at Ukraine,
with the chief benefit of disrupting western markets, inflating prices, weakening economies,
while they continue to sell their oil to China and India.
Suppose if the Russian military has enough,
or political leaders,
that could be a game changer.
But what general doesn't enjoy a good war?
"Even Comrade Lenin underestimated both the anguish of that nine hundred mile-long front, and our cursed capacity for suffering." Boris Pasternak - Doctor Zhivago
Seems things could go either way.
Russia has the resources to continue, slowly pounding away at Ukraine,
with the chief benefit of disrupting western markets, inflating prices, weakening economies,
while they continue to sell their oil to China and India.
Suppose if the Russian military has enough,
or political leaders,
that could be a game changer.
But what general doesn't enjoy a good war?
â¦one where an inordinate amount of his peers have also been killed.
Seems things could go either way.
Russia has the resources to continue, slowly pounding away at Ukraine,
with the chief benefit of disrupting western markets, inflating prices, weakening economies,
while they continue to sell their oil to China and India.
Suppose if the Russian military has enough,
or political leaders,
that could be a game changer.
But what general doesn't enjoy a good war?
Not so much ethnic cleansing as removing any latent opposition by terror.
btw, looks like the Russian military is quickly falling apart in Ukraine, going by various Twitter feeds.
Yeah, Putin has shot his bolt; now things get really scary.
Not so much ethnic cleansing as removing any latent opposition by terror.
btw, looks like the Russian military is quickly falling apart in Ukraine, going by various Twitter feeds.
The Economic Weapon punctures the myth that sanctions have been an alternative or antidote to war, while tracing their shifting purpose from preserving inter-state relations to toppling internal political regimes. Based on rigorous and broad research, it offers crucial lessons for historians and policymakers. Despite the hopes pinned on them, sanctions typically donât produce the regime change desired, and they take an enormous toll on those subjected to them. The very anticipation of sanctions triggers actions that preclude their effectiveness: aggressive statesâ ambitions are stoked further by desire to secure additional resources to immunize against the deprivations of threatened sanctions. The premise of sanctions â that societies make political decisions based on economic rationalism like fear of falling living standards â is not borne out by history. People often prefer bad conditions to foreign rule.
Gazprom said on Friday that it would postpone restarting the flow of natural gas through a closely watched pipeline that connects Russia and Germany, an unexpected delay that appeared to be part of a larger struggle between Moscow and the West over energy and the war in Ukraine.
The Russian-owned energy giant had been expected to resume the flow of gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline on Saturday after three days of maintenance. But hours before the pipeline was set to reopen, Gazprom said that problems had been found during inspections, and that the pipeline would be closed until they were eliminated. It did not give a timeline for restarting.
The announcement had the hallmarks of a tit-for-tat move. Earlier on Friday, finance ministers for the Group of 7 countries said that they had agreed to impose a price cap mechanism on Russian oil in a bid to choke off some of the energy revenue Moscow is still collecting from Europe.