Russia isn’t going to attack NATO. It seems pretty clear their endgame in Ukraine is just to grab as much land as they can, move out Ukrainians or conscript them as cannon fodder, and move in more Russians.
This is why Ukraine can’t negotiate any kind of peace in the present conditions. Russia might agree to stop hostilities and leave the front lines as is, or maybe trade back some territory for more Donbas territory. But Russia can’t credibly say they won’t attack Ukraine again (after they’ve had time to regroup). Their word means nothing.
Either Russia or Ukraine has to be soundly defeated for this to end.
Wind was the official excuse for cancelling the air shows. There was talk about possible crosswinds at airfields but the weather in Moscow was fine. Maybe Putin didn’t want to chance getting bombed by his own air force.
If exposure to Russian history has taught me anything, it’s that Russians love shipping people to distant parts of Russia far away from their homes and then shipping “real” Russians to their former location. Then they use the new Russians as an excuse to justify Russian actions.
Another sense I get is that Russian history is mainly about making bad decisions to mitigate prior bad decisions in an escalating manner. This occasionally ends in mass starvation or the loss of poorly faught wars.
This is kind of hard to swallow but it could be what he tells himself as he tries to grab more territory.
“Putin really believes that this is not a war with Ukraine. A general mobilization is fundamentally at odds with how he sees Russia’s actions,” says political scientist Stanovaya. “In his eyes, the operation is directed against a Ukrainian regime and a corrupt elite enlisted by the West and acting against his own people. It isn’t aimed at conquering territory.” She says Putin wants to help the Ukrainians build a state that is independent of the West. “It’s ridiculous, but that is his reality.”
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