Is weird we are now going to stop normal trade relations? Shouldn’t that have come first and immediately?
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If US intelligence knew this, but was keeping it secret, who would they share that information with and which countries would be expected to know on their own because of their own intelligence operations? Would Ukraine be kept out of the loop?
Yeah I agree that they wouldn’t be leaking info like that except for maybe in the rare case where it helps strategically. But it could have slipped through the rumor mill somehow I guess.
I think there is quite a bit speculation that he is on a deadline now to seal himself in history.
As for not looking well, not really surprising, but certainly he could be sick. It’s hard to pinpoint “why now”, as we saw most people outside of us Intel didn’t think the invasion would happen. I think if there were real rumors of him being sick, people might have been more wary.
The puffy face thing is how basically all alcoholics look
Rubio is the ranking GOP member on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1497393912821915648
The obvious implication here is either mental instability or some kind of terminal diagnosis leading him to riskier behaviour to “establish a legacy”.
While I am posting Rubio tweets…
https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1502084617775501334
If true I guess this is “good news” in a way because it means that Putin remains rational and sees that he might have to scale back the aims of the war in order to get out of this with any kind of win. But it does mean, as I speculated earlier, that the next phase of the war will be to administer Ukraine a beating to soften them up enough to extract some concessions. So it might not be very good news for Ukrainians.
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A terminal condition leading to compromised immunity might explain why he has looked so paranoid of COVID. A friend of mine has cancer and has been undergoing chemotherapy, so he has isolated himself carefully as getting COVID with a suppressed immune system would be bad news. Cancer would also explain the puffy face, as steroids are frequently co-administered with chemo to help the body cope. All just speculation, but makes a certain amount of sense.
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Just how old people look imo, but I’m not an expert on old drunks
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he has a bad case of being old. as a reminder he’s already over 5 years older than median russian male life span. if alcoholism doesn’t get him by 70, then dementia is pretty common too.
Putin doesn’t drink. At least that has been the public claim for years and I have never seen anyone suggest this isn’t true. Under his leadership there has been a crackdown on alcohol abuse as well. Alcohol sales in Russia have declined significantly iirc.
that’s also possible. he was super concerned about covid that even his closest oligarchs were restricted to almost no contact. he doesn’t even use the internet. imagine being so isolated that every so often a minion prepares a summary of what the people discuss on social media and on tv
the face has been like that for a long while. some dermatologists diagnose that as too much botox for too long.
he definitely does. not like most russian men, but he does
What do you think is the next phase if Ukraine proves to be resistant and don’t offer any/enough concessions?
I’m wondering if the best result for the long-term is a multi-year stalemate that ties up Putin until he dies, but maybe he gets impatient and switches to a higher gear of war rather than see things dragged out.
bank? cerveza and banjo.
damn man