In last night’s update I wrote:
Here’s where things are going to get dicey. As the economic responses move from sanctioning specific business and individuals to removing most of Russia’s banking system from SWIFT and going after the wealth – in dollars, pounds, euros, etc; real estate and land; yachts; jets; professional sports franchises; etc – of Putin, his key aides and agents, and the rest of the oligarchs enabling him, as well as going after the mistresses, girlfriends, and children of Putin and his cronies, pressure is going to build. Specifically the pressure by the oligarchs and other sycophants and cronies to protect themselves. Additionally, the increase in the flow of weapons to rearm Ukraine to allow it to withstand the Russian reinvasion is also going to increase pressure on and around Putin.
The war is not going well for the Russians. This was not the speed run to Kyiv to capture and kill as much of the Ukrainian national government and as much of the government of the oblasts as possible and replace them with easily controlled trusted agents. Every day that Ukraine holds out increases the pressure. And that pressure is going to get relieved in two ways. The first is that Putin will up his operational tempo. What he threw at the Ukrainians overnight was much more than he’d ordered be done over the previous two nights. And as day 4 turns into night 5 of the war what he orders will be more than what he threw at the Ukrainians today. CNN reported earlier that its reporting team had eyes on a thermobaric missile launcher just south of Belgorod, Russia near Ukraine. If things continue to go badly, I expect we’ll unfortunately see this type of weapon system deployed. The second way the pressure is going to get relieved is that Putin will begin to go after the US and our EU and NATO allies in ways that he has not yet done so. He will lash out, most likely through increased cyber attacks first, in an attempt to inflict pain to stop, or at least slow down, the resupply of the Ukrainian military.
Putin has seriously miscalculated with this reinvasion. He misunderstood the resistance his forces would face. For whatever reason he seriously misunderstood the competency of the military he’s spent over a decade rebuilding and modernizing. And he misunderstood how the US and its EU and NATO allies, as well as the vast majority of the world, would respond.
Well that didn’t take long!
The War for Ukraine Update 4: Putin EscalatesPost + Comments (527)