re: #30 Dark_Falcon

Putin may well know and is doing it because its offensive, as a way of enraging the West and thereby daring them to stop him. Putin’s betting they won’t try and that the impotence of their rage will then yield to demoralization.

That’s a stupid theory. I very much doubt that Putin has anything to do with his supporters wardrobe choices or that it’s part of some bizarre psy-warfare strategem. Crimea matters to him symbolically and both he and his people are nostalgic for lost Soviet glory. There’s nothing at all intelligent about what they’re doing. The fact that the West won’t intervene militarily was obvious from the beginning, but Russia is systematically destroying every ounce of international credit and goodwill they had left. This will damage their already damaged economy greatly and leave them horribly isolated on the world stage.