February.
Oh, for the economics side, absolutely. Russia could have been making out like bandits all this time by opening up to the West rather than retrenching.
But Putin’s entire career since watching the Berlin Wall fall has been to Make Russia Great Again. He’s not exactly caring how many rubles he’s losing in potential earnings, just wants Mother Russia to be a world power again and not an also-ran.
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I think Putin (shirtless and pushing 70) covets his supposed reputation as a badass. Everything else from geopolitical to economic considerations is so much показухи (aka window dressing).
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If Russia needs capital they best not run the risk of being cut off from the world wide money transfer system (SWIFT System) which is what would happen if they invade. Russia I have heard has cash reserves but not a huge amount by world standards. If they can’t transfer cash they cannot sell their gas. Oopsie.
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But his many oligarchs and the military boys who demand their toys may be developing some concerns 
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True, but the same holds true for the US as far as all the hidden wealth goes.
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^^^THIS^^^
That’s assuming Putler is a rational actor with the interests of his country at heart. Whether that’s accurate or not, I suspect we’ll find out by the end February.
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This is what happens when you have elected judges who are from an entirely corrupted party who are ruling on electoral process issues that will effect whether they get re-elected as a judge.
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He can be a badass or help his people eat, not both. And as for how it feels to be north of 70… well let’s say I have earned what grey hair I have left being north of that number.
Hopefully. Travel to their mansions in London might be curtailed.
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Kim Jong-un and Bashar Hafez al-Assad might just disagree.
And I bet you da’ man in the saddle!
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That would make a lot of London real estate agents and renters happy!
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Kim’s been dead for almost two years. It’s all been body doubles while his sister works to figure out how a woman can take over a dynasty that’s been entirely patriarchal.
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Putin thought the bluff would work. He’s used to dealing with Trump.
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Think a bigger factor was Afghanistan. He thinks everyone else thinks like he does, so that we so recently retreated from there was an indication that we wouldn’t have the appetite to go into another discotheque so soon.
And thus his grandiose demands to not only stay out of Ukraine, but also to remove our troops stationed in NATO countries in former Warsaw pact locations.
Can really see all of this just being one big “oops” that he misread the situation and now we might have to ask have WWIII because he left himself no easy off-ramp this time.
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Don’t you mean Donnie Jr.'s sister?
All the “diplomacy” looks like a smokescreen. Maskirovka to give some patina of legitimacy to escalation. At this point, I don’t see how full invasion doesn’t happen. 6 Russian amphibious warfare ships already in the Med, going to the Black Sea. 140 Russian ships in the Atlantic right on the shipping lanes the USA would need to resupply Europe if full war comes.
It’s also important to remember that Ukraine has been at war with Russia since 2014. Nothing is starting. Americans have problems understanding a situation where 14,000 people died in combat only dozens or at most a couple hundred miles away. The only question is how much worse will it get?
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Afghanistan could be a factor.
The exagerated demands were more likely a method of allowing Biden to ‘compromise’ while giving Putin everything he hoped to get.
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Just a small man over compensating, dragging along everyone else for his inferior complexes.
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Thanks for reporting on what is actually happening in Ukraine and the issues with the Minsk Agreement(s).
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