Putin is wasting no time following the clear path to finishing his pipeline to Germany, bypassing Ukraine, to ramp up the pressure on Ukraine.
I imagine Putin is learning from China that if you declare a target for your military to really be part of your own country, you aren't really going to war against another state:
Russian President Vladimir Putin is obsessed with Ukraine – or, rather, with pretending that Ukraine doesn’t exist. In his annual call-in show on June 30, he claimed that “Ukrainians and Russians are a single people.” He then published an article aimed at justifying that “conviction,” by tracing the two countries’ shared history. It is a masterclass in disinformation – and one step short of a declaration of war.
To assess this rhetoric merely as a signal that Moscow is preparing to take a specific military action is to miss the scope of what the Russian President is trying to convey. Putin’s opus is nothing less than an act of moral and political divestment not just from contemporary Ukraine, but from the very possibility of Ukrainian statehood outside the Russian sphere of influence.
If so, my old post on Russian military options is back in play. Although I believe Russia is too weak to conquer and digest all of Ukraine.
But if Putin is denying the legitimacy of a country that used to be part of Russia, what are the limits of Putin's view on restoring "Russian" territory? Does it apply to Belarus? The Baltic states? Central Asian states? Finland?
On the other hand, this bluster and threat my not prevent Russia from contracting further.
So could it be an opening diplomatic move to create the appearance of Russian retreat from an objective beyond its capabilities in a deal with NATO in order to end Russian appeasement of China and pivot to face China?
To me, [Russia's new National Security Strategy] seems like Russia is keeping its options open to repair relations with America and NATO. Which helps Russia get ready to face off against a potentially hostile China that sees a lot of former Chinese territory in Russia's Far East.
Putin better hope that China's view of Taiwan isn't also China's view of huge tracts of Russia's Far East, eh?
