mtutiger

Cutting off flights is drastic, but we probably need to start looking at that

Ugh

The conventional wisdom is that it probably is tight enough to survive. Domestically, aside from the people, the other question I have is about the oligarchs... at least a portion of his grip comes from them. An individual oligarch who crosses Putin may go off a third-floor balcony, but there may be power in numbers should some of them turn en masse.

That may be the hope, but it seems delusional

Something like that. A demilitarized puppet state would risk rapid collapse the moment Russia pulled troops out. Think Ashraf Ghani's Afghan government

I have a handful of acquaintances (both on the left and right) who have made excuses or been fans of Putin over the years. Just seeing what they have posted on Facebook at times. I wonder if any of this is opening their eyes... or (gulp) if this is just part of the appeal

Heroes... all of them

I really hope this man comes out of this alive. That's leadership

In other words, he's Colonel Kurtz.

JFC

Here's what I don't understand: In terms of their stated objectives, clearly Russia has the resources to take out the government in Kyiv and install a puppet. But we're talking about a country of 43 million and, while early, there is little to no indication of Ukraine soldiers laying down arms. How does this work without a long counterinsurgency that will result in a lot of loss of life for the Russians? And does that counterinsurgency, seeing the tepid response by the oligarchs and the much larger-than-expected protests, cause additional domestic problems? The whole thing kinda looks like an overreach, but he may not care.

That seems like a big deal....

Also that he doesn't think Putin's done. Considering that our intelligence has been pretty accurate so far, that's grim.

One thing that I came away with after his speech is the use of "empire" and "pariah", and his comment that there was a "rupture" in relations right now. There's been a lot of speculation about waiting out sanctions and such (especially WRT Nord Stream 2), but idk.... it's gonna be really hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube on this one. Granted it's contingent on the US/UK/EU staying rock solid on this.

This was definitely a speech where I was more interested in the details than the presentation. The only real mistake that I saw in it is that it could have did more to make the case as to why this is important... I suspect that it's breaking through to the normie-type person somewhat because it's getting covered extensively on all the networks and is the lead story, but the average person may not understand the importance of this conflict. That becomes even more important when you factor in prices, as well as the possibility in the future that Putin does expand his footprint into other countries (particularly NATO). He didn't really make the sell as to our level of involvement or why we need to pursue sanctions, unfortunately.

One of the surprises in this has been the Russian people... more opposition than one would have expected, even at the risk of jail.