I agree and I hope we're right. I also don't see Putin miscalculating that much as it's not even about the war itself (which he will win, but at a high military cost) or the sanctions after that (which can potentially cripple Russia). Occupying any part of Ukraine proper will drag him into a guerilla war with a dedicated, battle-ready and fighting for it's home army which will be a massive drain with no exit strategy. I still believe and hope his calculus is some minor skirmishes here and there to give more legitimacy to his separatists, but not a proper war.

Well said. I put the blame on American Neocons desperate to pick a war, any war, they´re not fussy, they just need a war. And with that we are back to my original statement that nato (the US) has encroached on Russia despite promises not to.

Did you see this in the meta-universe or only on Pravda.Ru?

To me their strategy is very clear: accuse Ukraine and NATO of what we're doing, do it persistently and relentlessly and at the end of the day nobody will be able to see who is the real aggressor.
A bit like "gaslighting" if you want. Anyway, Russia always saw itself as some sort of saviour not the brutal occupant that it was for all the soviet republics and satellite states after the Second World War and they never changed this narrative. As some irony of fate some countries are accused now of harassing Russia, which should be totally ridiculous for any normal person out there.

Naah, as komsomolez rightly pointed out, this is for internal use. The world outside of the Soviet meta-verse is aware of the ridiculous propaganda. Even more than that, Putin seems to be quickly running out of options to create a pre-text to invasion as all his bluffs seem to stick only with the Kremlin trolls.

The ex-KGB who holds an entire country hostage is well versed in the art of manipulation.....who knows what he'll find.

Well, he's a 69 year old, I hope he finds his tranquilizer and Viagra so we can all enjoy the coming spring festivals.

You may find this controversial, but I think that Putin the probably the best chance for peace.
Hear me out.
There has been a rebirth of nationalistic fervor since Russia felt that they "lost" the cold war, a lot like the "Dolchstoßlegende" where propaganda gave rise to the legend of the dagger stab in the back, which indirectly lead to German nationalism after the capitulation of WW1.
Putin is highly intelligent and a grade "A" technocrat. But in the wings are a breed of nationalistic hardliners, in my opinion without the mediation of Putin Russia would be way more bellicose.

I also think that it is the pressure of these hardliners both among members of the Duma and within the American neocons that is the direct cause of the situation in Ukraine today.

__________________
Back in Bavaria, god´s own belly button.

I wonder why the international community is not trying to bring or even to force these two to the negotiation table. The Swiss could help…

I think even being the ex-KGB, one person cannot hold the entire country hostage. There are probably a lot of powerful people with different interests Putin has to answer to, or he will lose his power. Hopefully the war side will fail.

I fundamentally disagree with your thinking. Ever since Putin got the power in Russia (in the 90s) he's been focusing only and solely on projecting hard power both internally and externally. The only thing that brings "pride" to a Russian is how "strong" the military is. And yet, Russian per capita GDP today is lower than Romania and the overall economy is smaller than Italy. If Putin had focused on building a strong and prosperous economy we could have a very different picture today. The problem is, the Russian aparatchiks have no clue how to manage this, all they know is hard power and when you only have a hammer, all problems seem like a nail. Putin missed the chance to bring Russia to the developed world while having all the power in his hands. It's naiive to think that somehow he's being pushed to be as he is as his has shown time and again that it is HIS choices that matter and he has done as many cleanses as he'd wished and none of them have been in the direction to develop the country. History will not judge him favorably as he has been and will be nothing else but a threat to be contained.

Well here I must disagree with you. I base my opinion on Putin´s speech in front of the Bundestag in 2001.
Basically Putin offered to build "the West" a bridge to Russia with the promise of open doors. He also outlined a way for stability in Europe in a post Soviet Union world and it would have worked with Russia a integral and equal partner.
It was "The West" lead by the American neocons who slammed the proposed door into his face. It was a missed opportunity and now we stand to pay the price.
I don´t know how your German is but at 2:40 he changed from Russian to German.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSPZ...rdieWeltVideos

__________________
Back in Bavaria, god´s own belly button.

Further proof that The Russians are Coming ! and already in many TV film schedules for the coming month.

2001, a few weeks after 9/11, his country only 3 years from its near bankruptcy in 1998, his second year in office and oil prices of 25 USD.

C'mon, everything he does in the region will be paid by each one of us. Yugoslav wars also have negatively affected the neighbouring countries too. Back then and now nobody wanted a war in the neighbourhood. Nobody, but who would listen to the people actually affected by all of these. On the other hand we can't really compare those situations only the effects on "collateral victims". The Balkans. That term that sticks..think of it. The image capital of the region is none. And now in Ukraine isn't a good situation either...admit it. Maybe Putin will not invade but will harass and weaken Ukrainian economy (and I use euphemisms here) till people will get out in the street and demand that atetz Putin saves them from poverty or whatever. When it's cold outside and cold in your apartment...


There will be a war, I have no doubts. Whether with conventional weapons or not, that is still debatable though.

The fact that Germany is in an "energetic" (energy) marriage with Russia does not help Ukraine at all.

This is not that easy — to build the strong economy. The Soviet Union broke into 15 separate countries, and Russia was one of them. How many of these countries today are doing better economically than Russia?

Olympics end today in China. Perhaps there was an agreement of sorts with China. Recently they had a loosely worded statement about respecting territorial agreements or some such with regard to Russia and Ukraine.

Next period of darkness would start at sunset tonight. Kiev is +1 hour.

Not sure what is not propaganda on social media but supposedly Kiev is now in Russian missile range due to recent movements. Iskander.

Neither Putin nor his speech-editors believe a single word in those speeches. Just to remind you, even now Putin keeps talking about peace and Lavrov calls the West response "hysteria". And yet, he has amassed 2/3 of his army at the border, has started with the provocations without ANY provocation from Ukraine whatsoever. His definition of "peace" is control of the territories of the former Soviet Block and he still lives in a world where superpowers divided smaller countries at will with complete disregard as to their wishes. Make no mistake, Putin isn't after peace. He's after re-establishing control over Eastern Europe.

I fully agree. In fact he has been waging war against Ukraine practically forever. The more the West bends, the more his appetite grows. Throwing Ukraine under the bus ISN'T a solution to satisfy Putin, it's just a check-box until he expands his territorial wishes further west. Just yesterday Spanish eurofighter jets stationed in Bulgaria had to expel Russian MIGs again from the Bulgarian airspace.

Nobody said it would be easy, but he has wasted 23 years. 23 years in which he could have created something meaningful both for Russia and his neighbors instead of subjugating, intimidating and harassing everyone around him. There's more Russian PhDs and highly-qualified professionals in London, Zurich and New York than there are in Moscow. Ever wonder why?

Depending on which story you mean. The current videos from Donbass shown on Russian TV are definitely lies because they are either taken on a wrong date (from a few days to a few years before they are claimed to be taken), or they show the same house in different videos once as a civilian house damaged by Ukrainian army and another time as a house where they caught Ukrainian saboteurs. Also they have shown videos of Ukrainian kindergarden shelled by the separatists and say that this is a kindergarten in LPR shelled by Ukrainian army. It seems that they try to generate as many reports as possible not taking care about their quality.

The audience of the Russian first channel is stupid regardless of what country they are watching it from. It's just that the size of this audience is much higher in Russia than in Ukraine, especially after 2014.

The problem is that Russian citizens have no say even in the decision to freeze their pension savings. So even if the majority of Russians would vote against the big war with Ukraine, nobody asks them. Ukrainians don't want a war but have no choice if their territory is attacked.

I don't agree that they are outside Russia. I don't know if Putin wants a big war or a small war but he definitely plans some military action after the Olympics, as usually.

I admit I followed this thread very loosely.

AFAIK, once upon a time, the West assured Russia that no NATO expansion beyond the German borders as agreed in the 2+4 talks would happen.

There is no written document, from what I understand that spells this out, but there are is a lot of supporting evidence in notes and cables etc.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitic...nato-expansion


I don't see the link to the original article, but here is a for-pay article:

https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/nato-...6-2cd6d3285295

IMO, there should have been a consultation with Russia as to how to deal with the former Warsaw-pact states that want to join.

Instead, their membership was accepted - probably with the idea in mind that it was easier to ask for forgiveness later than for permission beforehand...