Putin’s endgame
As soon as it became clear that the Ukraine war wasn’t going to end with a very quick Ukraine capitulation and Russian victory, I started to wonder how it was going to end. It seemed to me early on that … Continue reading →
Tag Archives: Putin
Putin’s rattling those nuclear weapons
Again: We’ve heard it from Vladimir Putin himself. We’ve heard it from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. But just in case we somehow missed the message, a political scientist and longtime supporter of Putin by the name of Sergey Mikheev … Continue reading →
Why was the intelligence community wrong about Putin?
I’ve not been impressed by the intelligence community’s take on much of anything Russian (or maybe anything in general), and that’s not just lately. I’ve written before about how the intelligence community failed to accurately foresee and predict the collapse … Continue reading →
Is the Russian military somewhat of a Potemkin village?
Ever since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine we’ve been arguing in the comments here about his motives and goals. Putting that aside, this post is about something else: the state of the Russian military. And by “military” I mean army, navy, … Continue reading →
The Putin Doctrine
Zelenskyy recently made a speech right before the NATO summit in which he said this (in English): The War of Russia is not only the war against Ukraine. Its meaning is much wider. Russian started the war against freedom as … Continue reading →
Russia’s Ukraine war will probably spark nuclear proliferation
It’s hard to conclude otherwise. It seems to me quite obvious that if Ukraine had kept its nuclear weapons, Russia would not have attacked it. Or at the very least, Russia would have been far more reluctant to have attacked … Continue reading →
If Biden isn’t going to be removed, can he at least go back to not answering questions?
I think it would be better that way. The latest is this: Biden on Wednesday called Putin a “war criminal” for the first time, upping American rhetoric and jumping ahead of a legal process that can take years. “I think … Continue reading →
What did NATO promise Russia?
Ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, I’ve noticed certain assertions made by some commenters here and around the blogosphere. They are often stated as though they are self-evident truths, unnecessary to document. Most people in the US – … Continue reading →
Who is Vladimir Solovyov and why is he saying those things?
Yesterday my attention was called to this article, the translation of which (thanks, Google translate) is as follows: Russian journalist and well-known propagandist Vladimir Solovyov said that the Russian Federation will not stop at the war in Ukraine. He said … Continue reading →
Putin: on bringing nukes to a conventional war fight
One of the reasons for the urgency of the Manhattan Project during World War II was the fear that if the US didn’t develop a nuclear weapon, Germany would. However close or however far Germany may actually have been from … Continue reading →
A very brief history: Ukraine and Russia, plus NATO and nuclear weapons
I’m going to respond to this recent comment, not in order to especially pick on its author, but because I think it’s an example of the type of thought process and the sorts of analogies we see quite a bit … Continue reading →
Putin isn’t Hitler, but he sure seems to have studied his playbook
Commenter Geoffrey Britain writes to commenter “om” as follows: “Your understanding of Putin is incomplete because you refuse to consider Russia’s view of NATO upon its border as intolerable.” Actually, though, I think that just about everyone here has “considered” … Continue reading →