1. Can Russia/Putin win?
With the present landscape? No....Putin's War is pretty much a 'grinder' which will just waste assets (tanks, solders, rockets), with almost nothing to show in the end. Add in the weekly financial cost in the end for working-class Russians....anything that lasts over four weeks will have a crippling effect for years on the economy.
2. This whole neo-Nazi/doper thing really selling to the Russian public?
No one can cite any poll, or any logic that people believe what the guy is saying.
3. The Ukraine's army that good?
NO. It's just that Russia wants to fight the 1980s Warsaw Pact type event where tanks take a front, and overcome weak defenses.
In this case, between the poor logistics (fuel situation), anti-tank weapons, crappy training for conscript guys (some just recruited in the two or three months), and a massive dependence on helicopters/low flying fighters.....a simple Ukrainian force has the weapons/attitude to stall the Warsaw Pact offense.
It wouldn't shock me if every major exercise for the Russian Army over the past twenty years has been a replay over Warsaw Pact-versus-NATO, and no one every modernized the 'script' for the exercise.
4. Have we seen all of the economic weapons deployed by the West?
No. There's talk of other ideas, and it seems like no one is fearful of losing Russian 'friendship' (maybe it never existed in the way people suggest).
5. Nord Stream II 'dead'?
Shell wants to sell off it's piece of the ownership (27-percent), and probably won't get even half the value of what they put into it. The chatter from the Germans is that they are writing a script where the max natural gas that Russia could sell them....is 30-percent of the total amount used in the country. If that's true, even if Nord Stream II were to come back (say in three years)....the big profit won't be there, as they anticipated.
6. The final five years of Stalin are marked to say his decision-making soured....his wit became less so....and he increasingly became less rational. Same scenario going for Putin?
Yeah.
7. Russians losing access to Master Card/Visa?
Yeah, that's one of the funny things you notice. People got used to Apple-pay, and digital transactions. They might have a few Russia-only ways of moving over, but it's going to beg more and more questions. Can they even plan that vacation to Greece or Turkey....like they were doing a month ago?
8. Threatening Finland over the discussion of joining NATO?
Well....here's the thing....the Finns never saw a reason to join, until now. Polls say around 55-percent want membership....less than 30 percent say no.
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