Russia & Ukraine

TreeFrogTrader said:
"Not blatant" meaning that it will not be responded to as such. Otherwise, recognizing the disputed regions as separate countries is about as blatant as you can get. Gee, I wonder if it would be considered to be blatant if the US recognized Quebec as a separate country next week. But Putin knows that DC/Biden are pre-wired to not see or minimize things if there is any chance, and this is Putin's ticket to current and future moves. Whether that be yesterday, tomorrow or the whole coming decade.

Ain't nobody believing that Nordstream pipeline will not be up and running at some point and Vlad knows that. If dicking around today or the near term gives Germany and the US a chance to look ballsy, fine, whatever. Vlad is not thinking near term and has no need to. Just by creating all this uncertainty he has driven up energy prices so that he is making more even without the pipeline. He is holding a massive, massive number of cards and is a tough, smart cookie who is moving to a plan and always has. The exact opposite of the west. The Chinese are tough and moving to a plan as well. Not that I needed to point that out.

Cuddles said:
Listen, I was wrong with my initial estimations and Biden got outplayed in this poker game. "Recognizing" secessionist territories, sending "peacekeepers", to goad Ukraine into responding while parking a standing army outside Kiev is blatant enough. Putin's speech about restoring great mother Russia yesterday was the cherry on top.

Like I said, Putin is trying to play a tit for tat game here. Sometimes the best move is to not unload your biggest move when provoked.

The both of you did it address the point that this action is not going over well inside of Russia. There’s a reason why bombs aren’t falling on Kyiv today. Our timing of sanctions is important here because it will hurt the Russian people.

Also, @TreeFrogTrader says Putin is some kind of a genius and he has this all figured out. I don’t think so. I think he is playing this day be day now. There’s no way he wants conscripted troops outside of Kyiv sleeping in broken down railway stations. The Russian troops surrounding Ukraine are not living it up out there.