Okay folks I think I might begin to see Putin's endgame. Maybe. His intention all along was to crush Ukrainian sovereignty. He has said for years that there should be no such country. He might have figured on a fairly peaceful walk over followed by the kind of deadly embrace he imposed on Belarus. That plan worked surprisingly well in Crimea but it isn't working even in Eastern Ukraine. So about his only path forward is to endure the sanctions and increase the military pressure until Ukraine collapses and serious resistance ceases. Then he erects his puppet government(s) and signs agreements of union with them. Finally he presents the world with his fiat accompi and urges a return to normalcy.
The sole bright spot is that there's no obvious need for nuclear weapons. The black pit of despair is what life in Ukraine will become.
I wonder if Putin would settle for a partition rather than try to subdue the extremely hostile population of Western Ukraine.
Relatedly, Dr. Strangelove is playing tonight at my local upscale theater. I've never seen it, but I've heard it's one of Kubrick's best and this seems like an opportune time now that MAD is back in fashion.
Just A minor drat ( A, C and E?). Not to worry. Another one: It's "fait" (French "deed") not fiat (Latin "let there be" as in "Fiat lux." Let there be light.) Again, not to worry. We know what you mean. We always do. There - always wanted to write a "Drat in A Minor." I think they're Hungarian in origin...
Who knows? Putin is a car collector. He's got one of everything, probably. Here's a pic with his (Ukrainian) '72 Zaporozhets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZAZ_Zaporozhets#/media/Fileutin_with_his_1972_Zaporozhets.jpg Ukrainska Knyha, here in Canada had a deal on these cars. You couldn't import one here, but for $1700 you could send to Ukraine and buy one for your relatives there... щасливого Різдва! From the Interweb... The acronym FIAT stands for Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino, which translates to “Factory Italian Automotive Turin.” The word also means “let there be” in Latin The only Russian-made Fiat-like cars I know of were Ladas. They were sort-of fiat 124s, produced under license from Fiat, similar to the Peykan of that era - in Iran. Built in a place called Togliatti, after the Italian Communist leader. Strangely, for Russian cars, they didn't do well in Canadian winters. Rotten cars. My then-teenage son bought one about 4 years old for $100. I think he got a weekend out of it. Then the differential collapsed and he towed it to the junkyard. You've done it again, Nosborne! Derailleured me into a CAR Thread-jacking!
I can't speak for others, but I'd figure if Russia ran low on endurance they might react by turning the valves off at GAZPROM. Russia accounts for 30+ percent of German fuel, I'm told -- and I'd guess maybe more than that in the Baltic countries. That could be the end result I would NOT want to see. An energy siege.
One can only hope that Europeans will see this as a wakeup call for the need for energy independence from their aggressive neighbor.
It is interesting that THIS is an end result you do not want to see, in a situation that inspires threads with titles like "nuclear war". Now, nuclear war, that is an end result we don't want to see. Russia shooting itself in the foot by cutting off 40% of their exports? Not too shabby, honestly. Keep in mind that if this lasts, and it mains me to say this likely will, this kind of outcome is bound to happen at some point. Also, word choices. There are cities under literal sieges. Sumy suffered an air raid this morning killing dozens of civilians, including children. Mariupol and Kharkiv are on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe. So, right now, a prospect of Germans having to turn thermostats down a couple of C and invest in replacing Gazprom fumes with LNGs at twice the price for a few months is NOT a "siege".
Yep - I get your meaning. 100% right - as is every word in the post. Thanks, Stanislav - I needed correction here. Good job.
You'd think between "energy independence conservatives" and "climate change progressives" that this would be the easiest slam dunk in all of politics.
Of course, nuclear energy comes with its own basket of risks and problems, but those problems are much easier to manage than international relations and climate change. BTW, international relations and climate change are both rapidly accelerating towards make the planet entirely unlivable for our species. Any bets on which one is going to get there first?