R_P wrote:
we know he currently has command over a serious nuclear arsenal and should believe him when he threatens us with it

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:

confession time: 
i've struggled with the same thought process 
it's hard to watch this kind of evil and not be moved to tears, frustration and eventually retribution
i've banned hate from my personal operating system, but watching this psychopathic dictator purposely extinguish innocent lives is trying
peace

In the FWIW department,

I cannot think of anyone who actually wanted to invade Russia since Patton.

Patton was highly pissed off about being stopped in Berlin and not allowed to keep going all the way to Moscow to finish the job as he put it.

His subsequent passing is still shrouded in mystery.
.
    

 kurtster wrote: 
You can relax now Kurtster. You're amongst friends.  

Re the endgame:  I think he initially would be happy to take Ukraine and keep free democratic elections away on the distant horizon. But I think he underestimates the willingness of the West to keep up the sanctions. 

He's given the renewables sector a massive shot up the arm. Not sure he realises that this is just speeding up his own demise. 

 oldviolin wrote: 
It is a cottage industry.  It's getting too hard to keep up with it all. 

The most obscure is Putin's endgame.  Ukraine and then what ?

An observation from my streetlife learned while working the mean streets of Cleveburg in the 70's and 80's.  Being a sitting duck for robbery, etc.

(I did once stare at a loaded revolver 2 feet away pointed directly at me.  I did see the loaded bullets in the cylinder facing me.  They looked huge. The big round hollow dark gun barrel.  Still a very stark image.  The gun was shaking in his hands.  I gave up the money and he got away.  I made adjustments after that incident.)

If you act macho, there will always be someone who wants to challenge you and find out if you are the fastest gun in the West or the toughest fighter, etc.

If you act crazy, no one wants to find out just how crazy you are and generally give you a wide birth and lots of leeway.

I chose the latter for my street persona and am still here to offer this observation.

To me, the most pressing questions are what is the endgame and who are the players ?

 oldviolin wrote: 
Yes and no. He fights like a cornered rat. Using anything at his disposal. All the more reason to isolate him and keep equipping the Ukrainian army. Even if he takes over the country, which is looking increasingly likely, the fight will go on and it is absolutely essential that we keep up the sanctions.

It'll be the people close to him that will take him out, for he has become too much of a liability. 

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote: 
Considering the general instability all around and increasing pressure on the Russian economy and its main beneficiaries, The implication is enough to send chills.
Strategic scenarios are being written and rewritten constantly...

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:
The NYT showed pictures of barricades and reinforcements of the nuclear site days ago as the Russians were moving closer. A likely military target.

Some of their reactors went offline before the Russians got there. Safety protocols too, I guess.

PUTIN WANTS TO UNLEASH NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST ON EUROPE!!!11! is more for The Daily Mail/Sun/Fox.

 R_P wrote: 
Still an exceedingly crude way to go about gaining control. Just another way for Putin to up the ante.

 VV wrote:
No, there isn't. And the Russians likely know that. They still need to shut them down.

Or do they want to irradiate everything, incl. their own soldiers? Not very likely.

PS: These things need to be safe though, like a-plane-might-crash-on-it-safe.

 R_P wrote:
I understand the rationale for trying to cut power but are you even suggesting that there is a safe way to bomb a nuclear facility?

 R_P wrote: 
I see the news is just getting better.. not.   Yes, all part of a strategy to take out critical infrastructure it seems. 

 steeler wrote:
Or  perhaps it's part of a larger effort:

Starting this past Sunday, three days into the invasion, Ukraine’s nuclear regulator began reporting an unusual rate of disconnection: Six of the nation’s 15 reactors were offline. On Tuesday, the Zaporizhzhia facility was the site with the most reactors offline.

Geographically, Russia is just as likely (perhaps more) as other countries to suffer from a meltdown.

If you take away power a lot of things become more difficult.

 steeler wrote:

From what I've seen the entire operation could be described so.

 VV wrote:

A couple retired generals doing commentary on CNN essentially made this sound like this was amateur hour militarily. 

 VV wrote:

What more evidence do we need that Putin is fucking insane?

 Red_Dragon wrote:
I'm beyond speechless... let's see Trump try and praise this "genius" move.
 
Is his true motivation not just the subjugation of Ukraine but to up the stakes to where other nations are simply forced to engage and begin WW III in order to try and protect the plant to avert a nuclear meltdown?
 
Until this I would never believed that anyone would be capable of such a cowardly attack.

Russian forces shelling Europe's largest nuclear power station

Luongo: Opening Salvos Thrown, What Are Putin's Next Steps In Ukraine?

BY TYLER DURDEN THURSDAY, MAR 03, 2022 - 11:30 AM

Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, 'n Guns blog,

Last week I wrote that Russian President Vladimir Putin rewrote the rules for the geopolitical game board. A week into his campaign to officially “demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine” it’s clear to me that Putin’s ambitions lie far beyond this stated goal.

He will, however, stick to that script until that part of the campaign is complete.

———

Okay, that’s the lay of the land.

So, what are Putin’s real goals? Like I said at the outset, nothing less than breaking the back of Davos and their agents in the US/UK who have tormented Russia for more than a century.

How does he achieve that goal?

Putin is creating incontrovertible facts which his opponents must respond to. Again, he’s setting the operational tempo, like I said last week.

Their counter-moves are insipid and predictable. Ukraine has asked for admission into the EU. The EU is open to this. Georgia is now doing the same thing. Turkey is livid. Hungary is not getting involved.

No one is willing to actually send arms to Ukraine.

What does the EU achieve by adding Ukraine? Do they think because they signed a piece of paper with a person who is de facto not in charge of his country going to change the facts on the ground there?

Do they still think “stroke of the pen, law of the land, kinda cool” matters at this point?

Because if the EU accepts Ukraine into its ranks, then it will be responsible for the next stage of escalation, not Putin. It will then have to figure out how to oust the Russians from their territory.

Last night President Sundowner made the entire US State of the Union about Ukraine. Do they really think a president with an approval rating that is, at best 37%, capable of marshalling the US into fighting a war for Europe against Russia after bankrupting us with NATO for three generations?

If they are, they are more delusional than even I’ve contemplated at this point.

Is NATO prepared to expand now into Ukraine under the umbrella of EU membership?

What’s obvious to me is the neocons and neoliberals controlling the West think they can turn Ukraine into a quagmire for Putin, but what if Putin thinks he can turn Ukraine into a quagmire for them?

Russia is not capable of conquering Europe. But he doesn’t need to to defeat them. He just needs to create a version of the map I posted above.

The Limits of Money Wars

If Putin and Russia have achieved, or are about to achieve, all of their military goals in Ukraine, what do they do to secure those gains?

They have to neutralize the financial war waged against them and create an environment where Europe spends money it doesn’t have, with failing political capital domestically, and bankrupts them completely.