I am not politically savvy. Here are my stupid thoughts.
- Everyone seems ready to declare early victory or are otherwise saying Putin's fucked himself... has it even been a week yet? This could go on for months or years.
- I don't think Putin is as dumb as everyone seems to assume. The individual units of the Russian military may not be world-class but there's probably some larger, long-term strategy in play.
- Putin clearly wants to goble up what he can before they join NATO. I don't think he'd ever attack NATO, so the nations outside it are his only chance for expansion.
- I have a gut feeling Russia will use a total of 1 nuclear weapons against Ukraine. US using two in WW2 and Russia never getting to might feel like a slight. This would let Russia flex its might and enter the history books, while using diplomacy to back off any retaliatory threats from NATO (nuking Ukraine technically wouldn't let NATO do anything though).
Maybe I'm totally wrong, who knows. 🤷
it depends on how closely you've been following the situation, how much you've been reading...but also how accurate any of that information might even be, so everyone's takes could be wrong
re: quick victory - there's been plenty of talk that Russia expected to have taken multiple major cities day 1 and doesn't have resources for more than 10 days, and every day costs them millions, which they already cannot afford
if they "win" tomorrow, Ukraine says ok we now surrender and will be your puppets, but sanctions remain in place and they stay ejected from SWIFT, then both Russia AND Ukraine are now economically isolated and fucked
Germany just woke up and have committed to re-arming which is absolutely historic, and it also sounds like they're going to try to ease off on reliance on Russian energy, so regardless of the outcome of the war this is a new wrinkle (Putin isn't stupid and expected this and is totally cool with it?)
re: nuking Ukraine...I mean...the whole point of this is wanting to own the place and re-incorporate it, they don't want a destroyed, irradiated husk, if anything they will nuke places they know they cannot have (and trigger MAD in the process, WW3)
you say Putin's not stupid but then say he will use nukes
ANY use of nukes is just...the end for Russia, if by some miracle they saw no retaliation, they would be a global pariah and economically shrivel into nothingness
I mean China is its own thing too and they don't want a neighbor who lobs nukes around, even if not at them (yet)
