Putin: Enemy of ....

[nebo113]

Will Putin unleash nukes?

[mamselle]

He's getting ready to.

I was just watching these three commentaries:

   a) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac1HKR5TdDI

   b) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC5qOD5r4LA

   c) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPGGLDrzPa4

Kasparov wouldn't be surprised, and from all we're seeing, I'm very sad to say, neither would I.

Just moving in over Chernobyl had a faint whiff of a suggestion of the possibility...a gauzy, ghostly piece of theatre one can be sure was not random or unintentional.

This is also significant:

   d) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZZFHgHzkdk

M.

[dismalist]

Will Putin unleash nukes?

No.

He wants more, just like the rest of us. He knows what he's doing, but most important is that he's less risk averse than the rest of us. Fog of war even aside.

He's playing a good game.

[mamselle]

Just found this site, don't know how I haven't seen it before:

It's France24, based in Paris, with coverage completely in English:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNhh-OLzWlE

Interviews, commentary, and analysis are all local.

M.

[mamselle]

Also this interesting analysis, suggesting this is a cosplay of 1999, when the US and NATO bombed Kosova and set it up for regime change...

   https://youtu.be/cxJxfSCMvnE

As for what "Putin is...", the most printable thing I can think of is "...a poker-faced 5-year-old sandbox bully who hasn't figured out that the empty hole in his heart won't be satisfied with taking over other people's homes and destroying their lives...but he feels compelled to try it anyway...."

I have never trusted him: such a cold lack of affect; he smiles like a shy teddy bear, while planning his attack like a sly cobra.

M.

[hmaria1609]

Just found this site, don't know how I haven't seen it before:

It's France24, based in Paris, with coverage completely in English:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNhh-OLzWlE

Interviews, commentary, and analysis are all local.

M.

I used to watch the English language newscast (half hour long) of France 24 when it was available on our satellite channel offerings.  I visit the France 24 website during the week--they seem to have more reporters throughout the world.

[mamselle]

Woke up thinking...."just a couple of Mossad agents, one acting as a cook, the other a chauffeur, some puffer-fish toxin, and..."

Weird amalgam of an unidentified dream, too much Le Carre, and a whiff of Dick Francis thrown in.

I promise I'm not normally so strategically vindictive....

M.

[nebo113]

Fiona Hill's perspective...

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/28/world-war-iii-already-there-00012340

[mamselle]

I saw that. Impressive.

Also this:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5UAz1fIdP0

and this:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPRmbV2vLzo

and this:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pczhvvqL_Qo

Wisdom and depth of purpose in all three cases.

M.

[mamselle]

And, too late to add/edit, but this speech by Zalensky earned him a standing ovation at the EU:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7TyVYH-ZzE

At one point, it sounds as if the translator is in tears.

M.

[Harlow2]

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/01/1083686062/russias-invasion-of-ukrainian-has-already-changed-the-world-as-we-know-it

Anne apple Baum on Fresh Air NPR 3/1/22

[mamselle]

Agree.

World War III just started last week, people.

M.

[dismalist]

An interesting analogy to the Ukraine invasion was cited on another blog -- the Winter War.

Here is the very illuminating and intelligent Twitter thread by a Finn https://twitter.com/jmkorhonen/status/1498989087700701184

There is also an informative and moving video about the Winter War, Fire and Ice, made by the BBC, if I recall, but put on You Tube by Finnish television

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR2FqMUVZzc&t=2s

[mamselle]

I just fear whatever support arrives will be too little, too late.

Standing ovations are all well and good, but Zalensky's not tap-dancing his tiny heart out so they'll stand up and clap.

If bombing a nuclear power plant and preventing firefighters from putting out the fires before the core is ruptured and a meltdown begins isn't a clear-and-present-enough danger to make NATO tender more serious support in situ, I don't know what is.

It will probably take a serious death to move the politicians off their platitudes and get them to do more than just sanction Russian economic institutions....you've got Cato saying "Ukrania delenda est," on the one hand, and a buncha folks piously saying, "No boots on the ground, no support for a no-fly zone," which are the sole two things Z's been pleading for, with grace, stamina, and dignity, ever since this whole mess began.

No wonder the French hated us for waiting two, three years, and then swanning in and playing WWIi heroes, rather than preventing all those earlier deaths to begin with.

Putin has nearly sewed up the whole southern and Eastern coasts, so no supplies can get in that way now, while the rest of the world has been tut-tutting about how stupid it is to run a convoy in through the north that you can't supply.

That was just a decoy.

He's stupid like a fox.

In ten days, if nothing else changes, it'll be all over.

M.

[Stockmann]

I hope Putin will at some point hit the limit of his economic capacity to wage imperialism. After all, both in per capita and total terms, Russian GDP is very much in the same ballpark as that of Mexico. Russia is already paying for a massive nuclear arsenal and fighting in multiple theaters. There is no obvious economic advantage to this war, even if Russia were to annex all of a war-torn Ukraine - what are they going to do, sell Atomik vodka to South Ossetia? At any rate, Putin seems to have forgotten the other side of the ledger of Europe's dependence on Russian gas - Russia doesn't really have anyone else to sell it to. There are no pipelines to export it to China - I'm sure the Chinese would build them on credit, if Russia wants to be at China's tender mercies.
It's hard not to wonder what might have been - that maybe this whole tragedy could've been avoided if there had been a Marshall Plan for the former Soviet Union, if Russia had been treated like, esp., post-WWII Italy, instead of the end-of-history arrogance of the 1990's and European fecklessness - not least, German weakness and corruption.