President Putin is Not Worried

President Putin is not worried. He may have underestimated the Ukrainian resistance, but Russia’s numbers will prevail. Soon they will cut off the escape and reinforcement routes to the west of Ukraine. He may have a pyrrhic victory, but not in his eyes. He is sending a message to Moldova, the Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and even Poland. They will be obliterated if they resist when he comes calling for them to rejoin Mother Russia. Poland would resist even harder than Ukraine. The Poles hate the Russians. The Warsaw Museum of the Polish Uprising damns the Russians as much as the Nazis. Putin could leave the Poles to last. President Putin is not fazed by NATO, which is sworn under Article V to protect its members. He views NATO as a paper tiger, with its mainstay the United States led by a diffident, ineffectual old man. He’s seen that before with Konstantin Chernenko and Leonid Brezhnev. He knows President Biden leads from the rear – far to the rear. He’s not worried. He knows Secretary of State Antony Blinken was the deputy secretary who advised President Obama not to send arms to the Ukrainians during the Russian seizure of Crimea. He’s not worried. He has the EU and NATO members over a barrel – barrrels of oil and gas. They don’t have a choice in his eyes. He’s not worried. President Biden is owned by the green faction of the ruling party. He won’t increase U.S. production. President Putin is waging war on Ukraine, but President Biden is waging war on America’s domestic fossil fuel industry. President Putin is waging war on Ukraine, but President Biden is waging economic war on his own people. He’s not worried about NATO. He knows the once formidable German Wehrmacht is but a shadow of its former self. The German Army is down to 62,766 soldiers. President Biden will go to Iran, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, begging for oil. That’s the President of the United States! Begging! The EU and NATO have a second option; it’s called coal. Power plants can easily convert from gas to coal, or vice versa. The United States has the coal. He knows President Biden doesn’t have the will. President Putin’s not worried. He knows democracies lack patience and staying power. The initial blitzkrieg and ground attack in Ukraine may have stalled, but he has a backup. Ask Grozny or Aleppo. Kyiv has a choice: submission or bombing into oblivion. It’s their choice – not his. He may be destroying the great cities of Ukraine, but that’s their decision. He may be killing tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children, but that’s the price to pay for restoring a great Russia. He’s willing to not only crush Ukraine, but break it into pieces. He’s killing young Russian conscripts in Ukraine, but Russia will never know the extent of the casualties. The Russian Army can easily replace the casualties. The Ukrainian Army cannot. The Russian Army is recruiting Syrians and Chechens for the fight. His top brass may have underperformed in Ukraine. No problem; he will purge them when it’s over. He’s raining bombs and rockets on Ukraine, but the West is seizing the yachts of his loyal oligarchs; they can afford the loss. He’s not scared of sanctions. He planned for it. Economic war against Russia? No problem; China is Russia’s next door neighbor. They won’t touch his hidden wealth buried behind multiple tranches (President Biden’s word). His people have suffered economic privations before. They can handle it. He’s now inviting Ukrainian refugees to come to Russia. They love him. He’s delusional or duplicitous. The peoples, especially Poles and Ukrainians, previously brutalized by the tsars and commissars have no love for Mother Russia. Delusional or not, President Putin is not worried, perhaps frustrated, but not worried.