By moving Russian forces first into the separatist territories, Putin will likely be looking to see whether this results in the entire package of full-fledged sanctions or if it will divide Europeans and Americans about whether this constitutes an invasion.
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The Whitehouse has indicated that there was not only agreement on sanctions amongst NATO members, but agreement on how to handle a continuous non-invasion and a focused invasion of the disputed regions. Now we get to see how firm those agreements are.
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One suspects things will get bloodier before we get a chance to find out.
Let’s test “invasion”. Have NATO tanks cross over into Russian territory as peace-keepers. Putin cares not about sanctions. He cares about the successful execution of his agenda. Folks don’t seem to get that.
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If Putin didn’t care about sanctions he would have already crossed whatever red lines remain. The sanctions are surely affecting his calculus, though they aren’t enough to dictate his behavior. They are going to hurt though.
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Yes I was thinking this morning- Russia isn’t only gas supplier. It will be interesting to see how quickly Germany and France etc can find alternative suppliers. And how that will be enabled by NATO allies/west. Plus, coming out of winter.
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Porkchop Express
@Porkchop_EXP
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Russia is doing to Ukraine exactly what it did to Moldova 30 years ago.
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The Kremlin's security council meeting and Putin's address to the nation have happened only a few hours ago. Have we already forgotten what he raged about? He is neither waiting nor listening to anybody but himself. We need to stop with the naive hopes.
Putin has miscalculated. The West has seen how Russian disinformation has caused chaos in the US/UK and how this could spread. They know he has to be stopped now and they are more united than ever.
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Guess we should not pay too much attention to sanctions. They were sought do be a deterrence and did not work. The only effect is that Europe’s economy is hit, once again. How about the U.S.?
It's an invasion disguised in semantics. We all know what the truth is.
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Slice and dice manoeuvre is old tactics in Russia playbook. Putin is well versed in tactics and counter-intelligence narratives. He is ex-security forces and trained in this sort of narrative and he faces world leaders who are not.
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It already has had the effect Putin hoped for, Biden has immediately backed down, by the looks of it.
This is an invasion and the west is about to surrender Ukraine and pretend everything is OK.
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I agree. Many countries will consider the Russian invasion as an act to protect their conationals . Poor Ucranians but they always will be part of Rusia , whether they like it or not .
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There are no separatist territories. They were set up by Russian citizens acting under Putin's orders. The US media needs to stop accepting these narratives. That's how we got here in the first place.
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