Russian state TV discusses how Putin could invade NATO Baltic states and force Sweden to declare neutrality This kinda crap is being fed to the Russian audience pretty much daily these days.
Meanwhile, Biden's handlers can't seem to agree on what he has to say today. Hence, he's over an hour late with his speech....
No he's not. He's just not relating to the fact that nuclear weapons changes the terms of engagement. If the US was fighting in Ukraine the war would be over already except for the likely distant nuclear blasts as the main combatants destroyed each other. I think the odds are pretty good we wind up with a nuclear exchange of some magnitude before this is all over. Russia's controls over it's nuclear arsenal are not strong enough to prevent Putin and his cohorts from launching if they decide to do that. The strategic situation is likely to get worse and worse for Russia as the conflict grinds on. Gains on the ground are going to be offset by the expenditure of munitions that will be hard to replace in the current sanctions environment. The only arms that will not degrade in value for them are WMD's and thus the pressure to use them will grow. This is true even with no direct intervention in Ukraine.
This is my biggest problem with the whole thing. We’ve been involved in Ukraine enough that we owe them more. The world owes anyone this happens to more. Sanctions, great. Its not helping and the country is being destroyed now.
They are kind of acting like some of the keyboard warriors we get here from time to time. Next Putin will be daring some other leader to meet him at Applebee's
I’m not sure I 100% believe he will go to the extremes a lot of people think. He attacked Ukraine because they are not nato, and he knows hands would be tied in a response. If he had no boundaries ,he would have went after easier targets to the north(Estonia etc). I do understand the fear of what’s possible, I’m also tired of letting Russia rule the response. He need to fear us at some point.
Well... I think he's angry over what he sees as unfulfilled promises made by the west. He wants the carrot... not the stick. "The United States aids Ukraine and her people, so that we can fight Russia over there, and we don’t have to fight Russia here." - Adam Schiff
He does fear us. He knows that if he cannot achieve a clear win in Ukraine he is going to lose control. He also knows that nothing that he does right now will change the sanctions environment nor the continual flow of Western arms into the Ukraine. Basically he has no options short of escalation and odds are very good that escalation hastens his demise. No matter how tight your allies are they will turn on you when they realize the only way out is without you.
