Yeah. I posted something like that earlier in the thread. These are the actions of someone who is trying to act while he still has time.
That makes as much sense as anything else, but nothing really makes much sense about this to me yet.
This whole thing has felt like a massive blunder from the beginning, and I have never been able to comprehend the upside of invading Ukraine. Russia already has Crimea, and they could have deployed "peacekeepers" to Lugansk and Donetsk without much resistance from the rest of Europe and the US, so why strike at Kyiv, Kharkiv, etc.? He must have been counting on slight Ukrainian resistance, but why on earth would someone think that an army fighting on its home soil won't resist? I just don't get it.
I've read that Russian demands at the peace talks were (1) recognition by Ukraine of Russia's annexation of Crimea, (2) "de-nazification" of Ukrainian government (by which I read, "regime change"), and (3) Ukrainian commitment to neutrality. He doesn't really need (1), (2) isn't something that any government would willing agree to under any circumstances, and he probably could have gotten (3) without an invasion outside of Crimea and the Donbass. Now that he's invaded, he will never get (1) or (3) unless he forces (2) at gunpoint, and there's little chance that will de-escalate anything internationally.
All I can figure is, sometimes people in heavy echo chambers make big mistakes, and maybe that's what we're witnessing. It's a real tragedy that people have to die for such stupidity.
