re: #233 Florida Panhandler

Putin has shown himself to be a terrible active military commander and an even worse strategist. He has long believed his own propaganda that the West and NATO are weak, chase money over anything else (well, he almost got that one right), and lack any real resolve.

However under Putin there are assuredly those (who like living and breathing ) who know otherwise and will hopefully remove the problem off of the game board if Putin tries to initiate nuke launches. I can imagine a hallway shootout between FSB members and Putin’s own Pretorian Guard.

Putin’s problem was that he didn’t understand that he had a Potemkin army. He believed, based on its past military successes, that it could take over an entire neighboring nation without any serious backlash, as he did with Georgia and Crimea. A successful occupation is another story, but the initial invasion was assumed to be a simple project. This is what happens when you surround yourself with yes-men who won’t contradict your narrative and when your entire system is composed of corrupt officials who not only siphon off some money for themselves but do it at the expense of a functioning military.