Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

In case you have not yet, read this article. It is the ultimate roller coaster ride. Russia has already lost with its best troops, it should pick one target (east Ukraine, Kiev or Odessa), rather than three at once, but Putin runs the show and wants all three to be in the best negotiating position, Russia will be out of gas in two weeks, so it is now or never for them, but Russia can still probably win a war of attrition, and Ukraine is being worn down too,  Putin can mobilize the whole country in his chase for the white whale, and maybe get it, opposition is just in the cities, Putin controls the fake news, and on and on. Maybe you will get less sea sick than I did, on the high seas of Putin's obsessive quest, with no one to tell him enough already. The guy has some credibility in the sense he lists what he does not know, fog of war and all of that. He's a more modest than hubristic expert.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/03/21/michael-kofman-russia-military-expert-00018906

Oh, the image  looks like a modern children's crusade (and why would the guy on the corner who is most visible and looks like 14 be part of the propaganda message - to win favor with those into child abuse?), but then I read that Putin was like a neutron bomb that had fused Russian orthodox mysticism, hedonism and sadism into a new element, and like all new elements, a highly volatile one.

My main takeaways from the article;

- Russia has used up all of its top forces and will run out of gas soon. Time isn't on the side of Russia, but it'll be worse for Ukraine if the fighting lasts longer than a month.

- This could very well end in a "Russian win". But since they look to accomplish many things at once, their original objective of regime change seems to have been cast aside, they're not prioritizing major cities and they don't seem to have the forces/logistics to conquer Kiev, no one knows what the hell a "Russian win" actually means or looks like anymore.

The only problem with the war of attrition point is I don’t see how Putin can politically pull it off. I know he dominates the news waves in Russia but I don’t see how forced conscription or seizing private business for the war effort when the country is teetering on economic collapse doesn’t see pushback on the home front

Remember it’s not running out of men that loses a war of attrition, it’s running out of material and/or national morale collapsing. It’s very hard to see the later happening, Ukrainians don’t seem like they are going to ever stop fighting and it’s generally been accepted that terror bombing campaigns, which is effectively what Russian seems to be doing, actually harden not break national resolve. As for the former, Russian production capacity isn’t looking great nor are the cash reserves they would need to get foreign equipment, if they could even find a seller.

[Hollywood]

In case you have not yet, read this article. It is the ultimate roller coaster ride. Russia has already lost with its best troops, it should pick one target (east Ukraine, Kiev or Odessa), rather than three at once, but Putin runs the show and wants all three to be in the best negotiating position, Russia will be out of gas in two weeks, so it is now or never for them, but Russia can still probably win a war of attrition, and Ukraine is being worn down too,  Putin can mobilize the whole country in his chase for the white whale, and maybe get it, opposition is just in the cities, Putin controls the fake news, and on and on. Maybe you will get less sea sick than I did, on the high seas of Putin's obsessive quest, with no one to tell him enough already. The guy has some credibility in the sense he lists what he does not know, fog of war and all of that. He's a more modest than hubristic expert.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/03/21/michael-kofman-russia-military-expert-00018906

Oh, the image  looks like a modern children's crusade (and why would the guy on the corner who is most visible and looks like 14 be part of the propaganda message - to win favor with those into child abuse?), but then I read that Putin was like a neutron bomb that had fused Russian orthodox mysticism, hedonism and sadism into a new element, and like all new elements, a highly volatile one.

My main takeaways from the article;

- Russia has used up all of its top forces and will run out of gas soon. Time isn't on the side of Russia, but it'll be worse for Ukraine if the fighting lasts longer than a month.

- This could very well end in a "Russian win". But since they look to accomplish many things at once, their original objective of regime change seems to have been cast aside, they're not prioritizing major cities and they don't seem to have the forces/logistics to conquer Kiev, no one knows what the hell a "Russian win" actually means or looks like anymore.

The only problem with the war of attrition point is I don’t see how Putin can politically pull it off. I know he dominates the news waves in Russia but I don’t see how forced conscription or seizing private business for the war effort when the country is teetering on economic collapse doesn’t see pushback on the home front

Remember it’s not running out of men that loses a war of attrition, it’s running out of material and/or national morale collapsing. It’s very hard to see the later happening, Ukrainians don’t seem like they are going to ever stop fighting and it’s generally been accepted that terror bombing campaigns, which is effectively what Russian seems to be doing, actually harden not break national resolve. As for the former, Russian production capacity isn’t looking great nor are the cash reserves they would need to get foreign equipment, if they could even find a seller.

Ukrainians shared a Report that a Chinese Ship was using the Southern to drop off supplies.  The report came from Turkey as the ship passed through Straight of Bosporous, but ti was later removed the interactive Ukraine Map.  Probably cause it's really dumb idea to tell the Russians that you have yes on their caro. 

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

https://twitter.com/mjluxmoore/status/1505973168938307584

The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation refutes the information of the Ukrainian General Staff about the allegedly large-scale losses of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine. According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, during the special operation in Ukraine, the Russian Armed Forces lost 9861 people killed, 16153 people were injured.

Wait, the Russians are claiming this? Doesn’t Russia always report hilariously low casualties? If this is there number either it is a typo or they are allot worse off than we though.

I always throw out any Russia casualty estimates in the trash, it is disinformation. The Ukrainian numbers are a bit too high and the American ones are too low.

The US estimate is around 7k and Ukrainian one is at 14k, so averaging them out is around 10k Russian dead.

[Interlocutor is just not there yet]

https://twitter.com/mjluxmoore/status/1505973168938307584

The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation refutes the information of the Ukrainian General Staff about the allegedly large-scale losses of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine. According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, during the special operation in Ukraine, the Russian Armed Forces lost 9861 people killed, 16153 people were injured.

Wait, the Russians are claiming this? Doesn’t Russia always report hilariously low casualties? If this is there number either it is a typo or they are allot worse off than we though.

I always throw out any Russia casualty estimates in the trash, it is disinformation. The Ukrainian numbers are a bit too high and the American ones are too low.

The US estimate is around 7k and Ukrainian one is at 14k, so averaging them out is around 10k Russian dead.

Based on my brief glance on Wikipedia, the US has had around 11k military fatalities in the last 50 years. Russia could match that in week 5-6 of the invasion.

[sting in the rafters]

Suppose Russia conducts a full-fledged invasion. What's their plan a month from now when tens of thousands are dead, there's no end in sight to a Ukrainian insurgency, inflation increases as it always does with war, and there's thousands of people protesting outside the Kremlin? Urban warfare means high Russian casualties. Ukraine doesn't need to "win", they just need to up the body count to where enough Russian moms/wives get sick of seeing their boys come home in caskets.

There isn't the same fervor when they took Crimea in 2014. Young people are already lukewarm on the administration, fighting for the fantasies of septuagenarian elites looking to relive the USSR glory days they weren't alive for can't help much on that front. The Kremlin can't disappear them all. Mark my words, a botched invasion is one of the very few things which can jeopardize Putin's grip on power.

Nearly 4 weeks in and how the f--- did a glorified excel monkey stoner see problems a former KGB spy in command of seasoned military staff and elite intelligence agency didn't?

[pppolitics]

https://twitter.com/TheAtlantic/status/1506025991881252871

[Storr]

It's always helpful when your enemy leaves their plans behind.

https://twitter.com/HN_Schlottman/status/1506077475150905349?s=20&t=v7gyXxtg...

https://twitter.com/HN_Schlottman/status/1506079382099668993?s=20&t=v7gyXxtg...

[Frodo]

US sending secretly acquired Soviet air defense equipment to Ukraine: report

[pppolitics]

This is a great time for Moldova to kick Russian troops out of Transnistria.

[NOVA Green]

https://mobile.twitter.com/JackDetsch/status/1506028136139575302

If I had to guess, I would think the traffic jams actually have something to do with it. When the front of a 20 miles convoy isn’t moving the Chief of Ops or whoever gets to go up front to yell, wave his hands, and generally look very important trying to untangle everything in range of enemy snipers.

Don't get me started on the subject of Ukrainian Snipers... believe I was the first to have reported the story here weeks ago?

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=469771.msg8509709#msg8509709

Still, likely be a 404 since I just deleted the post since pretty sure there are over 200 words and haven't gone that far back in time to purge posts for rules which were never clearly defined.

[AndyHogan14]

This is a great time for Moldova to kick Russian troops out of Transnistria.

As great as that would be, I am not sure Moldova has the active forces to take out the Transnistrian and Russian forces. With that said, if Ukraine ends up with a victory, I would support Ukraine going in* and helping Moldova clear out their territory of Russian forces. Having Russian forces (however small) in Moldovan territory is not good for the national security of Ukraine.

EDIT: *Only if Moldova asks Ukraine, of course.

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1505889409408905216?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7C...

Some supporting evidence of Ukrainian advances around Kyiv:

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1506110975711363074?s=20&t=ur01Fq...

[Badger]

26% of 10% is not really a significant demographic though.

 Thank god

[pppolitics]

This is a great time for Moldova to kick Russian troops out of Transnistria.

As great as that would be, I am not sure Moldova has the active forces to take out the Transnistrian and Russian forces. With that said, if Ukraine ends up with a victory, I would support Ukraine going in* and helping Moldova clear out their territory of Russian forces. Having Russian forces (however small) in Moldovan territory is not good for the national security of Ukraine.

EDIT: *Only if Moldova asks Ukraine, of course.

The only thing that keeps Moldova from crushing Transnistria is Russia.

Now that Russia is pre-occupied with Ukraine, it's a perfect time to crush Transnistria.

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

In case you have not yet, read this article. It is the ultimate roller coaster ride. Russia has already lost with its best troops, it should pick one target (east Ukraine, Kiev or Odessa), rather than three at once, but Putin runs the show and wants all three to be in the best negotiating position, Russia will be out of gas in two weeks, so it is now or never for them, but Russia can still probably win a war of attrition, and Ukraine is being worn down too,  Putin can mobilize the whole country in his chase for the white whale, and maybe get it, opposition is just in the cities, Putin controls the fake news, and on and on. Maybe you will get less sea sick than I did, on the high seas of Putin's obsessive quest, with no one to tell him enough already. The guy has some credibility in the sense he lists what he does not know, fog of war and all of that. He's a more modest than hubristic expert.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/03/21/michael-kofman-russia-military-expert-00018906

Oh, the image  looks like a modern children's crusade (and why would the guy on the corner who is most visible and looks like 14 be part of the propaganda message - to win favor with those into child abuse?), but then I read that Putin was like a neutron bomb that had fused Russian orthodox mysticism, hedonism and sadism into a new element, and like all new elements, a highly volatile one.

My main takeaways from the article;

- Russia has used up all of its top forces and will run out of gas soon. Time isn't on the side of Russia, but it'll be worse for Ukraine if the fighting lasts longer than a month.

- This could very well end in a "Russian win". But since they look to accomplish many things at once, their original objective of regime change seems to have been cast aside, they're not prioritizing major cities and they don't seem to have the forces/logistics to conquer Kiev, no one knows what the hell a "Russian win" actually means or looks like anymore.

The only problem with the war of attrition point is I don’t see how Putin can politically pull it off. I know he dominates the news waves in Russia but I don’t see how forced conscription or seizing private business for the war effort when the country is teetering on economic collapse doesn’t see pushback on the home front

Except for the fact that, sadly and somewhat bewilderingly, anywhere from 55-65% of the Russian people tend to lean towards supporting what they know as the 'Special Military Operation' according to most polling I've seen on the issue. Putin has done a relatively decent job at whipping up nationalistic fervor and spreading his own debauched justifications to rural Russians/Older Russians who primarily consume state news.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Sanctions have completely stopped Russian tank production: https://www.unian.net/war/iz-za-sankciy-v-rossii-ostanovil-rabotu-edinstvennyy-proizvoditel-tankov-novosti-vtorzheniya-rossii-na-ukrainu-11753992.html

....this also makes it impossible to build new parts for maintenance and repair too. Also Russian's military hardware's targeting systems is based on semiconductors imported from Taiwan. Now that Taiwan has banned imports to Russia, they no longer can maintain the weapons systems on their hardware.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/1505952644875132932

These kinds of reports have been BS in the past and the annoying this about this one is that it's harder to verify because of the secrecy around this weapons program and the likelihood that US-owned Soviet systems probably only exist in small numbers which won't be immediately noticeable in open sources.

I note that the report claims they "are being sent", not that they have arrived. We shall see if the Ukrainians offer any public thanks or whether there's an update stating they've actually been delivered. Despite the small number of systems and confidentiality, there's a decent chance some politician publicly claims credit for this if it's actually real.

I am starting to think this might be real. This plane is heavier than the usual transport craft carrying aid to Ukraine: https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1506132683306508289
 It could be something else, or it could even be systems to be deployed elsewhere in Europe, but the deliveries alleged in that report (which the War Zone considered credible enough to signal boost) are one candidate for what is (was) on board.

The report also has some credibility because it states that the US had not sent the Belarusian S-300 and pure clickbait would either claim it had been sent or refuse to rule out that it hadn't. It makes some sense that the US, being reluctant to part with its aggressor training tools, only gives up its most outdated and most easily simulated - and it's public knowledge that the US only ever received parts of a Belarusian S-300 anyway. Russian sources claimed (at the time) that it was devoid of electronics.

Recalling the earlier report about SA-8s, -10s, -12s etc. being sent to Ukraine, the only Western ally that has an S-300V variant - which is what an SA-12 is - is the US, which got one from Russia in the 1990s. This was, allegedly, without its most powerful radar, but that should still have left it functional. If both the earlier report and this one are correct, there's a fair chance that S-300V is among the systems that are going to be sent.

Edit: the report mentions the Osa (SA-8) short-range system as being among those sent, so at least we know that if there's any truth to the claim, they're not just sending MANPADS.

[CumbrianLefty]

In case you have not yet, read this article. It is the ultimate roller coaster ride. Russia has already lost with its best troops, it should pick one target (east Ukraine, Kiev or Odessa), rather than three at once, but Putin runs the show and wants all three to be in the best negotiating position, Russia will be out of gas in two weeks, so it is now or never for them, but Russia can still probably win a war of attrition, and Ukraine is being worn down too,  Putin can mobilize the whole country in his chase for the white whale, and maybe get it, opposition is just in the cities, Putin controls the fake news, and on and on. Maybe you will get less sea sick than I did, on the high seas of Putin's obsessive quest, with no one to tell him enough already. The guy has some credibility in the sense he lists what he does not know, fog of war and all of that. He's a more modest than hubristic expert.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/03/21/michael-kofman-russia-military-expert-00018906

Oh, the image  looks like a modern children's crusade (and why would the guy on the corner who is most visible and looks like 14 be part of the propaganda message - to win favor with those into child abuse?), but then I read that Putin was like a neutron bomb that had fused Russian orthodox mysticism, hedonism and sadism into a new element, and like all new elements, a highly volatile one.

My main takeaways from the article;

- Russia has used up all of its top forces and will run out of gas soon. Time isn't on the side of Russia, but it'll be worse for Ukraine if the fighting lasts longer than a month.

- This could very well end in a "Russian win". But since they look to accomplish many things at once, their original objective of regime change seems to have been cast aside, they're not prioritizing major cities and they don't seem to have the forces/logistics to conquer Kiev, no one knows what the hell a "Russian win" actually means or looks like anymore.

The only problem with the war of attrition point is I don’t see how Putin can politically pull it off. I know he dominates the news waves in Russia but I don’t see how forced conscription or seizing private business for the war effort when the country is teetering on economic collapse doesn’t see pushback on the home front

Except for the fact that, sadly and somewhat bewilderingly, anywhere from 55-65% of the Russian people tend to lean towards supporting what they know as the 'Special Military Operation' according to most polling I've seen on the issue. Putin has done a relatively decent job at whipping up nationalistic fervor and spreading his own debauched justifications to rural Russians/Older Russians who primarily consume state news.

These figures for support in Russia (assuming they are broadly true despite the fairly obvious caveats about polling there, especially now) look fairly impressive, but the lack of *overt* enthusiasm remains striking - even that Putin rally last week was obviously artificially boosted by "bussed in" people.

Compare to taking Crimea in 2014, which saw at least semi-spontaneous displays of genuine fervour.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Sanctions have completely stopped Russian tank production: https://www.unian.net/war/iz-za-sankciy-v-rossii-ostanovil-rabotu-edinstvennyy-proizvoditel-tankov-novosti-vtorzheniya-rossii-na-ukrainu-11753992.html

....this also makes it impossible to build new parts for maintenance and repair too. Also Russian's military hardware's targeting systems is based on semiconductors imported from Taiwan. Now that Taiwan has banned imports to Russia, they no longer can maintain the weapons systems on their hardware.

This is a Ukrainian claim without Russian or international confirmation.

Not being able to build new tanks would be a big blow, but IIRC the Russian army (like most armies) has its own maintenance and repair teams, and a vast supply of older machines in storage that could be cannibalised for spare parts if necessary.

It would come on the heels of this, reported by Russian state media on March 9: KamAZ will completely switch to Russian spare parts. Ukrainian sources previously reported that KamAZ, the principal supplier of trucks to the Russian army, was facing shortages of parts - and KamAZ corroborated they faced shortages of Western parts before announcing they were going to switch to using no Western parts by the end of the month. The probable hit to Russian truck production seems more important because they don't seem to have nearly as many trucks lying around as they do tanks and they need more to fix their logistics problems.

[dead0man]

Since we don't have a lot of "counter point" here (the only poster in the thread on the "other side" clearly doesn't wants to talk about everything but the war), I offer you Military Images.net (link goes to page 50 (of 610) of their version of this thread).  It's still mostly pro Ukraine, but there are a few in-between-ers and at least two on Russia's side, if you wanted to see some impressive whataboutery and "no see, it's not going THAT bad for Russia because blah blah".

[Torie]

Today on this fine morning, the  NYT turns its attention to giving me as I sip my coffee far more information than I wanted to know about nukes as usable “field” weapons. And if you are tired of the cliche "peace through strength," you can give a test run to "escalate to de-escalate."

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/21/science/russia-nuclear-ukraine.html

“Russia’s atomic war doctrine came to be known as “escalate to de-escalate” — meaning routed troops would fire a nuclear weapon to stun an aggressor into retreat or submission. Moscow repeatedly practiced the tactic in field exercises. In 1999, for instance, a large drill simulated a NATO attack on Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea. The exercise had Russian forces in disarray until Moscow fired nuclear arms at Poland and the United States.

‘Dr. Kühn of the University of Hamburg said the defensive training drills of the 1990s had turned toward offense in the 2000s … .

‘Concurrent with its new offensive strategy, Russia embarked on a modernization of its nuclear forces, including its less destructive arms. As in the West, some of the warheads were given variable explosive yields that could be dialed up or down depending on the military situation.

‘A centerpiece of the new arsenal was the Iskander-M, first deployed in 2005. The mobile launcher can fire two missiles that travel roughly 300 miles. The missiles can carry conventional as well as nuclear warheads. Russian figures put the smallest nuclear blast from those missiles at roughly a third that of the Hiroshima bomb.” [197 words quoted]

I guess the story was precipitated by the White House disclosing that one topic of discussion at the NATO summit is what to do if Russia uses such “baby” nukes.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/03/22/world/ukraine-russia-war

“President Biden is preparing to travel to a NATO summit this week in Brussels, where the Western allies are expected to discuss how they will respond if Russia employs chemical, biological, cyber or nuclear weapons.”

What should NATO do if Putin uses a baby nuke to shake things up a bit and get things moving again? Anyone have any ideas? My idea cupboard is empty on this one.

[Inmate Trump]

Today on this fine morning, the  NYT turns its attention to giving me as I sip my coffee far more information than I wanted to know about nukes as usable “field” weapons. And if you are tired of the cliche "peace through strength," you can give a test run to "escalate to de-escalate."

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/21/science/russia-nuclear-ukraine.html

“Russia’s atomic war doctrine came to be known as “escalate to de-escalate” — meaning routed troops would fire a nuclear weapon to stun an aggressor into retreat or submission. Moscow repeatedly practiced the tactic in field exercises. In 1999, for instance, a large drill simulated a NATO attack on Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea. The exercise had Russian forces in disarray until Moscow fired nuclear arms at Poland and the United States.

‘Dr. Kühn of the University of Hamburg said the defensive training drills of the 1990s had turned toward offense in the 2000s … .

‘Concurrent with its new offensive strategy, Russia embarked on a modernization of its nuclear forces, including its less destructive arms. As in the West, some of the warheads were given variable explosive yields that could be dialed up or down depending on the military situation.

‘A centerpiece of the new arsenal was the Iskander-M, first deployed in 2005. The mobile launcher can fire two missiles that travel roughly 300 miles. The missiles can carry conventional as well as nuclear warheads. Russian figures put the smallest nuclear blast from those missiles at roughly a third that of the Hiroshima bomb.” [197 words quoted]

I guess the story was precipitated by the White House disclosing that one topic of discussion at the NATO summit is what to do if Russia uses such “baby” nukes.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/03/22/world/ukraine-russia-war

“President Biden is preparing to travel to a NATO summit this week in Brussels, where the Western allies are expected to discuss how they will respond if Russia employs chemical, biological, cyber or nuclear weapons.”

What should NATO do if Putin uses a baby nuke to shake things up a bit and get things moving again? Anyone have any ideas? My idea cupboard is empty on this one.

I don't know, but the response can't be nothing.

I've been supportive of the US response thus far, and think Biden has handled things re: Ukraine extremely well. But Russia using any nuclear weaponry will have to have serious consequences. I'm just not sure what that might be that wouldn't lead to nuclear war.

[dead0man]

The Pentagon would give Biden a list of responses, suggest one or two of them and then do what he says.  Ideally they (Biden, the Joint Chiefs and whomever else Biden wants in the discussion) have already discussed this and other possibilities so there isn't a lot of hemming and hawing if the sh**t does hit the fan.

As to what those options are, well, they are probably what we think they are.  Everything from starting the "big one" to nothing at all, and everything in between.  The choice is Joe's, because that's who we elected.  Apparently our only other option was Trump, I saw other names on the ballot, but we've been told there are only two options and we do what we're told.  So we have Biden, and that's.....fine.

[Torie]

The Pentagon would give Biden a list of responses, suggest one or two of them and then do what he says.  Ideally they (Biden, the Joint Chiefs and whomever else Biden wants in the discussion) have already discussed this and other possibilities so there isn't a lot of hemming and hawing if the sh**t does hit the fan.

As to what those options are, well, they are probably what we think they are.  Everything from starting the "big one" to nothing at all, and everything in between.  The choice is Joe's, because that's who we elected.  Apparently our only other option was Trump, I saw other names on the ballot, but we've been told there are only two options and we do what we're told.  So we have Biden, and that's.....fine.

TNR addresses the question. I don’t find its musings very comforting. By the way, I read a baby nuke would destroy NYC. I am sitting about 3 miles as the crow flies from its city hall.

https://newrepublic.com/article/165634/putin-nuclear-weapons-ukraine-us-response

Even if the unfathomable occurred and Russia used nuclear weapons in or around Ukraine, it’s unlikely the U.S. would respond in kind. “I doubt that we would reply in nuclear terms; the risks of escalation would be too great,” says Harvard University’s Joseph Nye, former assistant secretary of defense. Nye suggests that the U.S. might respond in the cyberworld, “but that has its own problems with retaliation.” Instead, the most likely response would be to try and further isolate Russia for violating the nuclear taboo, and perhaps move some troops to Europe. The U.S. could take the opportunity to reinforce the unacceptability of Russia’s extraordinary use of these weapons.

Since the West has made it clear it will not involve itself in Ukraine significantly, some experts believe that Putin is conducting his entire assault on Ukraine for domestic reasons. Putting his nuclear forces on alert could be an attempt to shore up his support at home or, at most, be a signal to the U.S. and its allies not to interfere in its war. Says Kristensen: “It’s important that NATO hasn’t taken the bait.”

[CumbrianLefty]

In that situation, we could certainly make clear that Putin himself is a dead man walking. Given his widely reported fear of death, that is one thing that might just give him pause.