Quote:
Originally Posted by Onkel Neal
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Yes, many at the top of the Russian establishment are about plundering their own country, and their foreign political pose expresses that they do not want to be called out for it: then they argue with anti-Russian sentiments and Russophobia. The one thing that Putin did was that he set up a red line for oligarchs where they better had to stop in their greed: when they started to become a threat to the state, which is Putin himself, so to speak. Then the state - Putin - cracked down mercilessly on them.
I dont know if he is bluffing over the Ukraine. But if it is a bluff, then it is the most convincing bluff I have ever seen. Stepping back from it would be an enormous loss of face, and that is what makes the situation so sobering. He cannot pull back, it seems, without making a joke of himself, and not being taken serious anymore. And that is what really itches him. He mjust get a trophy of any sort that he can present and say: "Look, this is what I achieved, this is why it was worth it." If he fails in this, he will no longer be taken serious. A lame bear, so to speak.