Putin has massively overplayed his hand and will go down in history as an idiot. He has done exactly the opposite of what he set out to do, all of which has massively irritated China.
1) made Europe (as in the EU) more united than before, economically and military. Germany was holding out, but Scholz has already firmly indicated that is no longer the case. The EU will finally get its army.
2) Baltic states and Eastern European countries eager and lining up to join the EU (not that it will be easy for any of them to actually join) and NATO.
3) the EU and the US are more aligned now than since WELL before trump and even countries like Sweden and Finland have committed to spend 2% of GDP on defence. Unheard off prior to this shitshow.
4) as China was finally starting to reap the benefits from being the global economic power, our idiot friend in Russia sends the world into economic meltdown. A global economy in Meltdown is really bad for Chinese continued growth. The resources China needs to keep its economy going are all more expensive than they have ever been. The fact that oil & gas exports to China are continuing (some say ramping up). Is not going to help the Russian joke of an economy one bit, all that gas and oil have already been paid as Russia is repaying Chinese loans.
5) There is now MASSIVELY increased NATO presence right at Russia’s doorstep, and closer to China. And Xi (who has had a boner for Taiwan since well before he got his first Playboy magazine) has seen the incendiary reaction from the west to this unprovoked attack on Ukraine and realised getting his hands on the rogue province (China’s view) is more unlikely now than it would have ever been. Thanks Vlad.
6) The West’s reliance, the thing everybody wanted – oil and gas – are now so undesirable they will never come back into demand. Norway and Algeria (a massive problem nation as well) are going to be the big winners economically.
There is no way any of this plays out well for Putin, and Russians unless they decide to stand up to him, the Rubble is worthless, who do you think is going to pay for the damage Russia has done? If you think any of these sanctions are temporary, think again. At the moment they have been decided by simple EU decisions and US decisions. These things can also be enshrined in law, making them permanent and [please avoid expletives – have to spent my time editing them out] Russia for eternity. Much harder to do, but if this drags on a clear signal to Putin directly his legacy will not be that of the great elected Tsar who brought the empire back but that of the demagogue who destroyed what Russia looks like today.
It’s not up to the West to change regime in Russia, that’s for Russians to do… But don’t expect anybody (including China) to be stepping in to support the regime.
Yesterday evening (around 11 pm local time) a 6 tons drone fell in my neighborhood (1 km from my home) in Croatia’s capital Zagreb. It flew from Ukraine briefly over Romania then over Hungary finally to hit Zagreb. No casualties, not much damage just a crater 3 m in diameter and 1 m of depth. Investigation is in the progress.
LeSving wrote:
These aren’t sanctions, these are knee jerk reactions and signaling. What exactly is the signal? That you are a “bad person” simply because you are Russian ? Pure fascism IMO.
Exactly, particularly when people who have been in prison in Russia for speaking out against the government and then got out of Russia somehow now face sanctions by pure fact that they are of Russian orgin. Singling out people by nationality or race is fascism. And I think some of the countries now realize this and start to go by lists, such as the US, at least in the aviation sector.
Those Russians who are against Putin are an asset, not the enemy. I am much more concerned that even within Europe there are plenty folks who think Putin is right and doing just fine. Those people are our enemy, not Russians who escaped a dictatorship and, in the contrary of some right wing bigmouths they DO know what it is to live under these conditions.
Valentin wrote:
The West/NATO interfere more decisively and show the force to Putin. I believe it’s the only language he understands.
How far do you want them to go before nukes start flying? So this won’t happen unless he invades a NATO country. If he does, it is WW3. Both Putin and NATO are clear on that.
EuroFlyer wrote:
3. will be 4. Putin makes a deal with Ukraine – LNR/DNR and Krim remain to be Russian, current government remains in power and Ukraine agrees to stay neutral, and then Putin and FSB trolls and fake agents start to destabilize the country from within. Nothing will change. Realistic and most likely outcome.
Yes, that is the most likely way things will develop and actually the only one which is viable. If it does happen this way however, Ukraine and LND/DNR must be protected by UN blue helmet troops or something like this to avoid any sort of “misunderstandings” or other false flag or nationalist overreactions. A Buffer zone will have to be erected and defended for a while at least.
Clearly Putin will try to generate fake news and what, if so, let him. Time will work against him there. He can not lock up his people behind the wall of lies, there are enough who do know the truth and it is going to spread. The most important thing is to stop the war right now and to start getting back to talking rather than killing and threatening with nukes.
As for the variant where Putin gets killed or forced to resign or whatever, we don’t have any clue who will replace him. Those most likely are out of his quora of 5 who have thought up his little excursion into Ukraine. Do you think they are better? It is not the question of replacing Putin alone, if at all, the whole who-is-who at the Kremlin has to go. AGain, time will work against them as the truth about this war WILL leak out to the population sooner or later. Also, it should have made clear to him that similar attempts e.g. against Khasakhstan or similar places are not advisable.
As for China, I think they are hopping mad at Putin for foiling their chances at Taiwan for the forseeable future.
LFHNflightstudent wrote:
Putin has massively overplayed his hand and will go down in history as an idiot.
That depends on whose history. On ours he already is more than that, a homicidal maniac who threatens the life of every single beeing on earth. Merely an idiot is way too complimentary.
On the Russian history books it will strongly depend on who’s doing the talking. Seeing how still loads of people admire Stalin and other aimiable folks from the Soviet aera, seeing that even in the Europe which stands up against Putin now there are still loads of neonazi parties around which feel Hitler was a great guy, seeing that even now in Europe there is a significant number of people who cheer Putin onto his expansion paths and would in fact give him the welcome he erroneously sought in Ukraine, history is a hydra with lots of different truths.
If there will be a chance in a few years to really investigate the whole horrid story of this war, it will be very interesting to determine what of all the news was actually truthful and what was propaganda and fake news. Quite a few things might look in a different light by then.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
As for the variant where Putin gets killed or forced to resign or whatever, we don’t have any clue who will replace him. Those most likely are out of his quora of 5 who have thought up his little excursion into Ukraine. Do you think they are better? It is not the question of replacing Putin alone, if at all, the whole who-is-who at the Kremlin has to go. AGain, time will work against them as the truth about this war WILL leak out to the population sooner or later. Also, it should have made clear to him that similar attempts e.g. against Khasakhstan or similar places are not advisable.
Rumors are that the russian security council has been ordered to publicly support that invasion, and all the people that knew about it (very few, apparently) told him not to do it. The blame game already started.
What was the saying? “We have a no-blame culture, but we HAVE to know who’s fault is that”.
His clique will wait for him to stop the invasion first and clean up the aftermath a little, and then something might change.
I’m not overly optimistic. :(
arj1 wrote:
Rumors are that the russian security council has been ordered to publicly support that invasion, and all the people that knew about it (very few, apparently) told him not to do it. The blame game already started.
What goes around is that FSB called it an “adventure” which is as close as they would go calling it a mistake. It is also said that Lavrov was very vocal against it once he understood it was actually happening, probably not only because it made him look like an idiot for saying the opposite. Hence I think the fact that Lavrov is by now the guy doing the talks with Ukraine is significant.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
LFHNflightstudent wrote: Putin has massively overplayed his hand and will go down in history as an idiot.That depends on whose history. On ours he already is more than that, a homicidal maniac who threatens the life of every single beeing on earth. Merely an idiot is way too complimentary.
I think for any specialist it is a fact now. The majority were expecting more of a sabre-rattling from him, then some “instructors” going to LNR/DNR, may be some listenning outposts and things like that. When he has requested a permission from the parliament for the military personnel to go outside Russia, no one expected this.
The economy and the country were fairly stable, but then he decided to do … what?!
The only reason it blew up now is because P got greedy and went for Ukraine, which is one of the richest areas in the world, full of iron and metallic ores, and huge amounts of agrigultural products being exported all over the world.
Indeed, the war started mostly about taking over more resources and cutting competition (more money for dictator army and pockets full of oil & gas for his oligarchs), the whole discussions on de-nazification, NATO expansion or EU join is one way for VP to sell it to ordinary Russian people
A serious set of economic sanctions is the only way to stops this war while UKR has resistance advantage, this would cost a lot to the West and it will be hard to swallow (with the exception of GWB administration, US/EU never viewed UKR as strategic corner)
Unfortunately,the story from FT seems very beliveable- https://www.ft.com/content/503fb110-f91e-4bed-b6dc-0d09582dd007
Mooney_Driver wrote:
How far do you want them to go before nukes start flying? So this won’t happen unless he invades a NATO country. If he does, it is WW3. Both Putin and NATO are clear on that.
It is already WW3. However, the collective West is trying to deny it by pretending that there are some “red lines” that are not crossed yet but they would definitely fight if they were. Now it’s attacking a NATO country. I’m not sure NATO will act if it happens in reality, however. Apparently, Putin feels that NATO leaders are scared and hope to avoid interference. It means that his threats work and he can continue this strategy.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
As for the variant where Putin gets killed or forced to resign or whatever, we don’t have any clue who will replace him.
If Putin gets resigned, whoever comes instead of him will be less interested in escalating the conflict. Most of the people surrounding Putin are pragmatic in the sense that they want to enjoy life by using Russia’s resources in their private interests and spend money for luxury goods and lifestyle in western countries. So they all massively lost from this conflict and would rather prefer to return to the prior status quo.
