Crimea was one thing. That affair was a total blunder on the West’s part. It’s almost like they are in denial. We’ve had intel sources accurately pinpointing and valuing state-level military capabilities and intentions to a remarkably fine grain for decades. So we watched the military buildup expecting what(?) and doing nothing to counter it until it was too late. We’ll just assume it was a trap, and our spooks won this time.
So when the Olympics were over with Putin emboldened by Xi’s support, he did what everyone expected, in perfectly predictable ways, clearly narrated with hostile rhetoric at every step. Maybe it was the recent debacle in the ‘Stan, or simple complacency perhaps? For whatever reason, pundits gave me the distinct impression this was going to be a quick, decisive affair if and when the Kremlin Killer decided to go for it. Anybody outside Ukraine thinking otherwise wasn’t talking much.
This could have been avoided, but all is not lost. There’s a common-denominator on those battlefields: soldiers. They’re there for one reason: to kill each other. The big difference in this case is, their officers are telling the Russian troops civilians are combatants. The tide turned against Moscow in Putin’s war the moment Volodymyr Zelenskyy made his first broadcast after the shooting started. Alot of people are gonna be unnecessarily killed while we watch what happens when a powerful dictator gets in over his head.