[MalPearce]

Doesn’t Russia have SOME agency in there?

I mean, I’m willing to buy the presence of a bit of “tail wagging the dog” but heck, they’re an 11 time zone country that Putin’s always reckoned could take the three Baltic states, Ukraine, Ukzbekistan, Georgia, Moldova and Chechnya back with one arm tied behind its back.

And, to be fair to the guy, he’s managed quite a large bit of that shopping list in the time he and his mates have been looting a trillion dollars out of the Russian economy.

I just don’t buy that poor old impotent Russia is completely a hostage to fortune in this conflict.

[Miguk]

Of course Russia has some responsibility and culpability in this conflict.

But after the rout and retreat from Afghanistan, the M.I.C., Pentagon and Democrats/RINOs, needed another Forever War.

So far, this one does not involve direct US troops shooting at Russians. US "mercenaries" CIA spies and operatives and foreign fighters (mercenaries), are arming, training, and providing intel to the Ukrainians. Real-time intelligence gathering and dissemination.

But unless the US is going to become directly involved (and nuclear war soon follows), I don't see the Ukes winning the artillery war. They are not now winning the propaganda war. And Russia has the bodies to occupy the land that was once Ukraine.

And with winter coming soon, blackouts in EU, power outages, rationing (energy and food) already starting, technical difficulties in restarting nuclear/coal plants and the not-soon-enough start times, no amount of gaslighting and propagandizing will fill empty bellys or keep the lights on.

Will it be France, Germany, England, Poland, the Baltics, Scandinavia that blink first ? It certainly won't be Russia.