I think Vlad has been surprised by the economic sanctions. I think he thought the implicit fear of losing gas supplies would make the EU and NATO back off. But oil collapsed and the ruble continues to weaken (though it has stabilized a bit recently).
What does Putin want? has a list. Maybe he just wants to appear to be a strong leader for domestic reasons. Maybe he has a grand plan to reconstitute a pseudo-USSR. Maybe he's demanding "respect". Dunno.
The US and the EU still has a lot of economic sanctions knobs that can be turned, and NATO has had a relationship with Ukraine for a long time. The west doesn't have to fight Putin to make things painful for him. (And resisting the temptation to fight him may weaken him by making the "the West is trying to strangle innocent Mother Russia!1" rhetoric transparently silly.)
I'm also reminded of China invading Vietnam to "teach it a lesson" back in 1979. They objectively lost in their aim of getting Vietnam out of Cambodia, but were able to declare victory after less than a month and get out. Putin should take that lesson and get out of Ukraine. I fear, though, that the longer this goes on, the more difficult he (and his puppet fighters in eastern Ukraine) will find it to make any political compromises. That's the main reason why I hope that stars are aligning to make this deal work.
We'll see.
Cheers,
Scott.
What does Putin want? has a list. Maybe he just wants to appear to be a strong leader for domestic reasons. Maybe he has a grand plan to reconstitute a pseudo-USSR. Maybe he's demanding "respect". Dunno.
The US and the EU still has a lot of economic sanctions knobs that can be turned, and NATO has had a relationship with Ukraine for a long time. The west doesn't have to fight Putin to make things painful for him. (And resisting the temptation to fight him may weaken him by making the "the West is trying to strangle innocent Mother Russia!1" rhetoric transparently silly.)
I'm also reminded of China invading Vietnam to "teach it a lesson" back in 1979. They objectively lost in their aim of getting Vietnam out of Cambodia, but were able to declare victory after less than a month and get out. Putin should take that lesson and get out of Ukraine. I fear, though, that the longer this goes on, the more difficult he (and his puppet fighters in eastern Ukraine) will find it to make any political compromises. That's the main reason why I hope that stars are aligning to make this deal work.
We'll see.
Cheers,
Scott.