If you try to analyze Putin, using the Cold War Playbook, you’ll miss the mark.
How so? This stuff is straight out of the Soviet playbook. Fake wars, hardcore gaslighting, murder and intimidation, invitation from Quisling fellow travelers to invade, etc., etc. We’ve seen this movie before.
"In view of the historical destiny of Russia and its peoples, the Leninist principles of state-building were not only a mistake, but far worse than a mistake. After the collapse of the USSR in 1991 this became absolutely obvious.Of course, the events of the past cannot be changed, but we must at least speak about them directly and honestly, without reservations and without political coloration. I can only add that the considerations of the current political conjuncture, however spectacular and advantageous they may seem at a given moment, should not or cannot under any circumstances form the basis for the fundamental principles of statehood.
This is neither the time nor the place to discuss issues of state or constitutional law and to define the concept of citizenship. Nevertheless, the question arises: why did the country have to be shaken even further under these already difficult circumstances?"
I mean, Putin is saying out loud, 'You have no 'state', you have no 'citizenship' -- other than what I grant you -- so, I'm going to Kiev'.
Just activate the sleeper in his inner circle and be done with it.
You are painfully ill informed.
Or maybe you are 90 plus years old and suffering from cognitive decline?
The fact that eastern Ukraine was until recently part of Russia and is populated by Russians who have voted repeatedly and with huge majorities that they want to rejoin Russia means nothing?
Muh Russia muh Russia muh Russia - let’s start WWIII because we are ignorant fools with zero historical context.
ya....but can you tell Biden from Putin in that game?