I would have invaded Ukraine if I were Putin

If I were Putin, I would have invaded Ukraine because this is what Putin saw in over a decade:

Russia:

  • 2000 brutal Chechen War II, costly but successful.
  • 2008 Russo-Georgian War, success with 20% Georgian territory under Russian control currently.
  • 2014 Crimea annexation, a spectacular success with little cost. The West, led by Germany, warmed quickly to Russia after the initial sanction.
  • 2015 Syrian operation, another spectacular success by crushing Syrian opposition forces supported by the West.

West:

  • The trillion $ Iraq war ended disastrously with US’s arch-enemy Iran controlling the country.
  • The trillion $ Afghan war ended with a spectacular fiasco and a country firmly in the PRC’s hands.
  • The West did nothing after the PRC broke its promise and militarized the SCS. The US president has been working diligently on the wrongdoing list handed to him by the PRC one item after another.
  • The US passed intelligence about Russia to the PRC which in turn passed it all to Putin.

Don’t these facts strongly suggest another spectacular success of invading Ukraine? The West implicitly admitted the defeat of Ukraine before the war started. Putin, like most others in the world, had only one flaw in his calculation – the will of Ukrainians. 

Ukrainians turned the tide of totalitarians marching around the world with no consequences and are fighting for those of us who believe in the rules of civilization, not the law of the jungle. 

 

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