I hope you’re right but China looks to be stepping up and helping them.
Putin has an alternative to use against Ukraine.
The Russians still have a ton of chemical weapons. Stuff like Sarin and VX. They’ve been dragging their asses at destroying it. Their stockpile is still pretty sizable.
I could see Putin, if he gets desperate enough, using Sarin against entrenched Ukrainian forces.
The nuclear threat is for us.
The Chinese have to play a fine line here. Russia is the other major partner in the SCO, the organization that solidifies the Sino-Russo alliance.
On the other hand, however, the Chinese economy is dependent on the West. And if this event has done anything to international politics, it’s solidified the West for the first time since the end of the Cold War.
Xi is in a hard place. He has to help the Russians, but he cannot help them to the point where the West, who is fairly unified for the first time in a generation, decides to slap a bunch of sanctions and tariffs on the Chinese.
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I’m not going to doubt that…maybe he’s having his own imaginary enemies. Have you read his rant?
I’m talking about hardliners in Russia…same people that’s in our own government. People like McCain for example. And yes I viewed him as hardliner. As I said before, in retrospect maybe it was a good thing that Obama won.
Sorry…but Putin isn’t only one that resents fall of Soviet and NATO moving up to their borders.
Read his manifesto/Rant. Their is more going on behind the scene.
The modern world of the Information Age is all run by demented morons right now, and it’s true too! 
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Oooooooh, please tell me more. I like the sound of that.
That’s not a good thing. Desperate countries do desperate things.
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I’m sure others are aggrieved about it, too. That doesn’t mean they want to crash their own country. But who knows? I heard the speech: this is clearly personal and emotional for him.
Putin clearly has bugs in his brain.
I’m no international banking expert, but I am genuinely curious to see how the Russian economy reacts to its paralyzed central bank (along with the other stuff). https://twitter.com/rtperson3/status/1497731514779553794?s=21
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Glad the world making a pauper out of a country has never resulted in a world war before.
Indeed.
I’m going to Europe tomorrow.
Interestingly where I am going, I actually think I will feel safer than at home,
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We were actually planning a Baltic river cruise, well my wife and her friends were. Then they told me about it, this was two weeks ago, and I said, those Russian troops massing on Ukraine’s border don’t bother you? Trip cancelled
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I’m even more curious about his face-saving off-ramp.
Would love to know what, if any, options are being presented to him.
are you just discovering Eastern European woman?
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He has energy to trade, China has, or can get, anything he wants or needs. They share a long border and have plenty of rail connections for bulk shipping. China isn’t going to let anyone do a “customs inspection” on anything leaving China by rail, or truck, into Russia. And they don’t need to put it through banking channels. They agree on a value expressed in barrels of oil or cubic feet of gas. Saddam did the same thing avoiding the sanctions before he was toppled. He would smuggle the oil out and receive goods back in exchange. No actual money ever changed hands.
Bummer. Thanks.
