Invasion Time

It's on now, the full fledged invasion of Ukraine is now fact. Vlad has no intention whatsoever of backing down. Kerry, you're wasting your breath with Lavrov, or just killing time while NATO gears up for the big stare down.

Something tells me that Vlad's been pining for this day, since he was strutting around in loaded diapers.
Raised on the valiant stories of Soviet success in defeating the Nazi's; he's been handed an opportunity in adulthood, to prove that he too, should be added to the pantheon of great leaders.

Problem is, he's dealing with a whole new reality that he has surely not grasped.
First, the nations he's lining up as foes, are his main trading partners. Not the brightest bulb in the shop Vlad.
In regimes past, the USSR, nor the czarists were as financially intertwined with the rest of the world as Russia is today.

Second, after years of mafiosi cronyism in government, and little real investment in modernizing the armed forces; you're setting yourself up for the big fail Vladdy boy. Your army could no sooner stand up to NATO, than a Boy Scout troop.

Third and not least, is the fact that truly great leadership as demonstrated by the likes of Churchill, Roosevelt, and even Stalin after the Nazi double cross of WWII, was the fact that these men rallied their people against an invasion, and the defeat of evil. They had the balls to join together two disparate antagonistic forms of government, into a formidable military alliance.

You Vlad offer just the opposite, you have no allies to your evil. Even your own oligarchy are now casting wary eyes on this folly as they fall victim to travel restrictions, freezing out of financial markets.
This is your reality Russia; Vladdy boy is leading you down a well worn path to the pits of hell, from which you will have to dig your sorry third world country out of, once again.

Haven't the past 400 years or so taught you people anything?

Ukraine III

I knew you wouldn't let us down Vlad; that phony pretext of Russian's being threatened by Ukrainian mobs is straight out of Hitler 101. Or is it Stalin 101, maybe it's just despot 101. No real difference evil is evil anyway you slice it. The country Vlad, the way you slice the country.

Donetsk, Kharkiv... where exactly will you draw the new boundary? So exciting, sitting in the Kremlin redrawing maps at your whim. What it must be like to play king... with so many inconsequential serfs to grind to dust.

So what's your next genius move? Cut off gas to the western portion of Ukraine? Can't do that, unless you want to cut off your cash cow in the rest of Europe; you know that growing list of nations lining up to sanction you and your capos. Yes the same countries who have been supporting your regime through the trade of stolen Yukos natural gas; those same countries are looking like they may finally nut up and face you down.

Today the list of economic and political sanctions at the disposal of your trading partners far surpass those at the hands of 1930's Europe, and perhaps these same countries will finally exhibit a proactive will to prevent further episodes of "Vladimir's Folly". Point is Vlad, you're treading on thin ice, your stock market is in freefall, the ruble rumbling down the slope of equity to it's lowest point in years. All the while, you fiddle while Kiev burns.