Posts by Drew Fowler4

Jack Hill2 said:Are you suggesting this was the intended outcome for the entire operation in Ukraine? There is absolutely no way.

The plan was a blitzkrieg on Kyiv—a total surrender of the military. Those "Nazis" out east who refuse to back down would have been easily neutralized from behind once Kyiv fell, framed as extremists who spent eight years sowing discord among their own people. And what would the West have done? Barked at the moon? Especially when faced with threats to cut off oil and gas supplies... likely aided by a few bribed traitors within Western democracies.

Think back to how this started. "Just exercises, we aren't attacking"—then suddenly paratroopers are seizing airports, an invasion is staged from Belarus, and more than half the force moves to encircle Kyiv. They even called on the Ukrainian Armed Forces to stop fighting for a government that had already fled, urging them to lay down their arms to avoid bloodshed. It was obvious what the goal was... it certainly wasn't the stalemate they're stuck in now.

They simply didn't anticipate this level of Ukrainian resistance or the Western reaction. In the end, he's stuck on a front line that's largely unchanged for eight years, facing military humiliation and heavy sanctions, with the EU threatening to cut off trade entirely. He thought he could hold Europe hostage over energy resources...

A complete fiasco for Putin. But the war is still ongoing; let's wait two or three years, and everything will be much clearer.

I didn't say the operation went according to his playbook; I said the man isn't an idiot. He is an exceptionally intelligent individual—something he has demonstrated countless times—and as for who is truly responsible for this conflict, every single contributing factor... well, that will become transparent in due time.

For the time being, it seems clear that despite massive losses, Russia will come out on top. As for what happens next to the global economy or the Russian economy specifically? That remains to be seen.

dustyowl29 said:He’s not going to pull the trigger because there’s zero incentive for him to do so. Honestly, he’s just running an experiment—much like the EU and the US are doing—where they throw something at the wall just to see what sticks.
Putin isn't even weighing the consequences, whether for Russia or everyone else. He’s making moves that could be incredibly risky for every single player involved.
The stakes are massive, yet Ukraine is relatively small—he’d have to achieve a hell of a lot just to actually wreck the global economy.
The guy has been unpredictable from day one. He isn't some master strategist; he just makes moves and waits to see what happens. Same deal with the EU.
The worst part is he's destroying his own people while leveling Ukraine to the ground. That’s the playbook of a terrible player. Instead of dusting off 200-year-old history books, maybe he should have spent more time playing war games—he might have actually learned something about strategy.
He looks like a fool, even if he thinks he's outsmarting the West. It really isn't that simple. Cutting off the gas supply to Europe is basically just shooting himself in the foot.

If you truly believe that Putin is just some reactive, uneducated idiot, then I think you’ve seriously misjudged the situation.