Bankir and his men have been trying to fight off Russian attacks along the Ukrainian front lines for more than two years. But it’s only now that they are finally able to strike where it hurts: Inside Russia’s own territory.
The newly granted permission by the United States and other allies to use Western weapons to strike inside Russia has had a huge impact, Bankir said. “We have destroyed targets inside Russia, which allowed for several successful counteroffensives. The Russian military can no longer feel impunity and security,” the senior officer in Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) told CNN. For security reasons, he asked to be identified by his call sign only.
Putin is waging a war of aggression, for conquest. Nuclear attacks would contaminate the land and reduce its overall value.
Putin is also not suicidal. And he has grandchildren.
He’s an absolute monster, but he’d have to be hiding in the bunker with Eva and the German shepherds before he pushed the button.
or they could go to Argentina and just hang out
At this point I don’t understand what he hopes to get out of it and how it could be profitable for him. Everything he might annex is a bombed out wreck and there are no longer the people that ran it. Even the existence of the harbor he wants to be a big naval base again: how could he expect that to ever be safe for the remainder of the fleet?
Even were he to win, he’s starting over with everything. Infrastructure, resources, people. When Ukraine wins, we will (hopefully) help them rebuild, but what is Russia going to do? Take out loans from Bank of China and dig themselves even deeper under a mountain of debt?
He wants the port in Crimea for trade. Russia is a mainly landlocked nation.
MAD wouldn’t be a thing in a first place if it weren’t for human spite, and the potential thereof. The ideal rational agents from game theory turn out to ignore it.