Putin: Enemy of ....

[mamselle]

But the thing about economic sanctions is that, finally, they may just prove to be so much paper-rattling.

He can just go into debt, internally if not externally, mortgaging the lives and incomes of Russians for a long ahead as he likes, since he has no accountability to speak of--who does he report to, after all? One of those guys at the end of the 7-foot table?

We are all Anthony Eden.

M.   

[Stockmann]

Ultimately, the generals could hold him accountable. The Soviet military arrested Beria, after all. I'm not saying that's what will happen. But there are limits to Putin's power and some of them involve economic constraints. The Soviet economy bearing the burden of financing a superpower's military played a big role in the USSR's collapse. Conscripts' pay is, in dollars, worth about half what it was before the war - impoverished wartime conscripts didn't work out too well for Nikolai II. The ruble is already facing an Argentina-level crisis.

[mamselle]

Best would be--as I said to one of my students whose parents are both from Lviv--to send Putin up in a hot air balloon, fueled to reach the stratosphere.

She agreed.

M.

[nebo113]

If he feels increasingly cornered, will he press the big red button, over which he has complete control?

[mamselle]

Yes, that is the other danger--as with suicides and hostage-takers, it's usually said to be important for negotiators to continue to emphasize their ties to other humans so they don't consider themselves so isolated that extreme actions have no significance.

It's too bad the other kids in the apartment complex where he grew up weren't nicer to him.

As with Hitler's declined admission to art school...

M.

ETA: Ban on oil immanent, per this live link:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSYV94ikhA0

[Anselm]

Boots on the ground and no fly zones will mean WW3.  Are you ready for that?  I can handle higher prices for gas and food.  Most Americans can't endure that.   If their survival as an independent nation is threatened then the Russians will use nuclear weapons.   Then the war will no longer mean CNN and popcorn in your living room.

Did Biden cut off Putin's Amazon Prime membership yet?  He mentioned the collapse of the ruble and the Russian stock market during his SOTU speech and got applause.  Every day we hear of new sanctions by corporations which will have no effect.  Russians will survive without Nike and Netflix.  I have no doubt that Putin and his generals have considered all of these actions before going to war and have contingency plans in place.   The weakness of the USA is the assumption that money can solve all problems.  It did not work in Afghanistan and now as a final tantrum we are talking about stealing Afghan assets in the USA and giving it away.  The Taliban likely are not worried about even having a stock market but they still are in power.  The Russians are in this to win. Brace yourselves.

[mamselle]

Yes, there is now direct evidence the Wagner Group's assassins are involved:

   https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-posts-photos-dog-tag-says-wagner-group-2022-3

I would very much prefer seeing Zelensky returning to do a reprise on DWTS after a victory over this insanity than any other scenario.

M.

[mamselle]

I can see wisdom in the Marshall Plan idea, but (I'll have to go look it up) didn't Russia prove itself a bad actor before anything like that could be enacted by taking over the parts of Berlin and the other E. European countries (that became the "Eastern Bloc" satellite zone) that had been sectored to them?

I don't remember the timing for certain, but it runs in my mind that they grabbed before they could be given to.

Or maybe not.

In any case, I fear we're going to see Zalensky--possibly quite rightly, from his perspective--making concessions to the Russians since there's no more forward movement on a no-fly zone, and Poland is now playing footsie with the jets they were going to send, saying they'll wait for NATO approval.

He's been slow-waltzed into looking to other alternatives than the US and NATO to help, since the things he really says he needs are being ignored. Sanctions are all very well, but all the back-patting and white-glove-test self-congratulations aren't going to stop the bombs as quickly as they need to.

A maternity hospital was bombed today, and yet another cease-fire corridor was attacked--among other things...

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJlINj57-XQ

M.

[dismalist]

Ultimately, the generals could hold him accountable. The Soviet military arrested Beria, after all.

After Stalin was safely dead.

[Stockmann]

If their survival as an independent nation is threatened then the Russians will use nuclear weapons.

The only serious threat to Russian independence right now is if they become economically beholden to China.

Did Biden cut off Putin's Amazon Prime membership yet?  He mentioned the collapse of the ruble and the Russian stock market during his SOTU speech and got applause.  Every day we hear of new sanctions by corporations which will have no effect.  Russians will survive without Nike and Netflix.

Prices are already soaring in Russia, and if that turns into hyperinflation, well, to the best of my knowledge the only regimes in history to have survived it are North Korea and, currently, Venezuela. In Yugoslavia, hyperinflation brought down the State itself, not just  a regime. Economic collapse brought down the Soviet Union. Impoverished conscripts ended Tsarism. Economic weakness set the dominoes in motion in Poland that ultimately brought down the Warsaw Pact.
Also, this whole situation has resulted in a new wave of emigration from Russia - a country already in demographic decline before this.

I have no doubt that Putin and his generals have considered all of these actions before going to war and have contingency plans in place.

I'm not so sure. No, they're not that stupid as to not consider contingencies, but perhaps they are that arrogant. Much as Tsarist Russia assumed they'd easily defeat Japan in 1905.

The weakness of the USA is the assumption that money can solve all problems.  It did not work in Afghanistan and now as a final tantrum we are talking about stealing Afghan assets in the USA and giving it away.  The Taliban likely are not worried about even having a stock market but they still are in power. 

Afghanistan and Russia are pretty different. Russia is a proper nation-state, Afghanistan is more like a territory ungovernable by almost anyone, Russia is vastly more developed than Afghanistan, Russians are overwhelmingly not fundamentalists, etc.

The Russians are in this to win. Brace yourselves.

So are some of the Ukrainians. Lavrov may claim Russia has never negotiated under pressure, but Brest-Litovsk and the peace of 1905 are counterexamples.

[dismalist]

"...the demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one."

--Henry Kissinger, 2014

[mamselle]

Not to demonize, he's done that to himself, but to surface another awful what-if...never taking his capacities for cunning for granted.

What chance is there (honestly not knowing) that all that business about first marching into Chernobyl, then taking another reactor site, was about assembling ground-level nuclear missiles in situ?

I don't know of it's even possible, but the comment he made a week ago about using nuclear weapons could have been a kind of out-loud signaling...

It seemed out of context and inexplicable at the time, and no further such action has apparently been taken...so I could easily be adding 2 and 2 together and getting five, but while thinking of something else, the lateral possibility just floated up in my mind....if the other parts were already assembled they could be brought in, and loaded, and set up ready to go.

It could also explain why the electricity turn-off doesn't seem to matter to them, because, not only would the old core be cool enough,  but if the active matter has been harvested, the danger could be non-existant from the plant...while now existing in transferable form elsewhere.

Complementary to this possibly farfelou ides, is the comment made by an interviewee today:

"Putin is like a spoiled brat, and now he's got everyone so afraid he's gonna hold his breath or have a tantrum that they're not even doing what they can against him, or looking out for themselves....

"Escalation happened when he marched troops across the border."

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

Yup, the Finns holding out against the Soviets is indeed an interesting analogy. This video is very recent

https://www.newsweek.com/russian-commander-tank-convoy-ambush-drone-footage-ukraine-war-1686750

Competence matters.

[mamselle]

Woo-woo, weird.

Maybe my lateral thought wasn't so far-off...

   https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-sees-gold-in-ukraine-nuclear-plants-chernobyl-reactor-fuel-waste-disposal-11646946568

Not for bombs, per se, but the harvesting idea may be afloat after all....

M.

[mahagonny]

"...the demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one."

--Henry Kissinger, 2014

While we are sickened seeing what the citizens of Ukraine have been enduring (or did endure prior to being slaughtered by war) Ukraine has not been the free society we have been led to believe. In terms of freedom and human rights, and corruption, approximately like Russia, according to this. Many political parties have been outlawed.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/2022/04/06/ukraine_is_not_a_symbol_of_freedom_and_democracy_566962.html