A friend of mine was station chief in Russia for West German radio news, and he said it is Putin who is playing the long game. There is plenty of time for Putin to consolidate his territorial gains in the eastern Ukraine, bomb cities not under his control with accurate rockets launched from Russian territory, and start an invasion and takeover of Moldova, which is strategic, unaligned and helpless, as a way to control all land access to occupied Ukrainian territory. Moldova is part ethnic Russian, part Romanian. If there is no pushback, Putin takes Moldova, expels the ethnic Romanians over the border to Romania, and brings Moldova back into the Soviet empire. Land access to all parts of the eastern Ukrainian-Russian border would then be complete. Putin’s line is evolving (or has evolved) into “there is no independent Ukraine, only Western Russia. Stay out of my country, or it’s war.”
Our correspondent friend has had a girlfriend in Moscow for 25 years. He hasn’t seen her in over two years, and the prospects don’t look good. He told us what a snake Putin was over 20 years ago. It doesn’t look like he has gotten any less reptilian. Unless Putin has a sudden medical issue (as in lead or polonium poisoning administered by his own people), this is not over by a long shot.
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