This is a mess either way

[mahnmut]

https://www.foxnews.com/world/us-embassy-personnel-family-in-ukraine-ordered-begin-evacuating-officials

Hmm... I see two scenarios here. So Vladolf invades shortly... loses 500k+ of his drug addicted army... Ukraine on fire, guerilla war for next 10 yrs or more, humanitarian issues, quite possible spillover effect into neighboring Nato states, possible other incursions, hardened security threats from Baltic to Black Sea... and Putinka meets his Waterloo... since Russia will collapse, and Putler will be toppled/killed... well played Kremlin pimp :))

Or two, more like Russia takes Ukraine and tightens their grip on Europe’s throat by stopping all oil and gas supplies if they ever oppose them.

Comments

[ejames]

I see more of the second one. Putin is a madman without a doubt but he is not stupid and plays the geopolitical long game with exceptional accuracy. Today is full of news that Germany wants concessions on any potential sanctions. NATO is divided over this whether they like it or not and Putin know this better than anyone else at the table. I honestly do not see anyone on the other side capable of measuring up at this point.

[oportet]

It could go like Crimea, where Russia takes it and then the rest of the world puts our fingers in our ears and closes our eyes and repeats 'it didn't happen' and then poof - it didn't happen.

Another possibility is some good old fashioned behind the-scenes appeasement - where Putin can go back to his people and say 'look what those idiots gave me' and our leaders come back to the west and brag to us how big bad putin cowered to their greatness.

[asthfghl]

And all the while, China using all the noise to do whatever they want.

[dancesofthelight]

Russia is more likely to annex Belarus than Ukraine, given that it's already eight tenths of the way there and moved troops into it with far less muss and fuss. That said 100,000 troops isn't nearly enough to launch an invasion of Ukraine against even mediocre resistance and any halfwitted Russian regime would know that. If the Butcher of Grozny did launch that kind of invasion he's far more likely to impale himself on a badly led Ukrainian army than he is to win it because a Ukraine invasion is not a small task. And Russia's record of armies in cities since the end of the USSR (and in Afghanistan before its fall) is mm, middling.

Ukraine could fight the war pathetically badly and still win it. Russia has to fight it superbly or it will see Putin break his regime. Whether or not enough rational people with influence are left to point that out to him and live afterward is a different question entirely.