I imagine that Zelenskyy is probably gonna be pretty cheerful about any anti-ship missiles that Russia wants to take out of the conflict and send to the Houthis no longer being his problem.
Hell, if I were Zelenskyy and could be sure that Russia's response to me doing missile strikes in border regions was going to be to actually proceed to go start concurrent conflicts elsewhere in the world using their limited supply of munitions, I'd probably have hitting said border regions be the very top of my priority list. Probably not possible to get a better return on investment with said missiles.
There's a saying about brilliant strategists are playing 3D chess, where normal people play 2D chess. But Putin is only playing it ½D Chess which is outright moronic. But I admit it can be a bit confusing being as moronic as it is.
Putin is not as smart as his propaganda paints him. In fact it's probably the most successful part of his propaganda. Even people who see through most of his propaganda tend to believe that he's always playing 4D chess.
Still, remember that when Putin threatens us, he is telling us what he doesn't like. Threats don't cost him anything. By now we should have learned that his threats are empty, but many people are just too afraid.
Yes unfortunately he manages to scare some people, and in USA his rhetoric is widely used for political propaganda against helping Ukraine.
It's astonishing the level of contact with Russia Americans accept among Republicans, without calling it out as effectively an agent for Russia working against American interests?!?! Here such people are removed from political influence. That would also have been the case in USA not very many years ago. But Trump has managed to make treason against USA the new normal among Republicans, because Democrats hate it for good reasons, but anything the Democrats hate, the Republicans want, disregarding harm to themselves, just to stick it to the "liberals".
There is a school of thought in intelligence that the current generation of russian leadership have a “win or die trying” outlook, because they are a generation removed from the leaders that conquered germany and had nothing to prove. There are rumors that putin considered it acceptable to nuke warsaw to win the crimean conflict, which matches his belief no one will stop him in ukraine, and he only needs to wait for trump to save him. It’s worth a pause… but I’m glad to see europe pushing back now, and putin should be afraid his choice will become “everyone dies, or just I die.” Because the people around him don’t want to be part of the everyone.
How dare the west not letting him murder, rape and pillage through countries. What should he do? Build his country up internally and propel it to prosperity? That is not the russian way of doing things.
