WHERE PUTIN IS GOING. AND WHAT YOU AND I CAN DO ABOUT IT.

An opinion

Absolutely for sure, Putin is a cat lover.

To summarize:

Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th. At the time of writing that was 17 days ago. Russian boasts that within three days Kyviv would be captured, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky would be dead, and a grateful Ukraine populace would be throwing flowers at the liberators haven’t eventuated. Clearly, someone miscalculated. Russian President Vladimir Putin most likely, even though he has asserted on camera that everything is going according to his cunning plan. Were Russian casualties numbering more than 11,000 in those plans? Was a usually piss-weak wokified West stiffening to offer something akin to a meaningful unified economic response to the invasion (such as freezing out Russia’s Central Bank) envisaged? Or having around 140 tanks and over 100 armored fighting vehicles destroyed, along with a not insignificant number of fighter planes and helicopters (around 40 each of both) blown out of the sky? Unlikely.

Many experts agree that whatever kind of victory Putin eventually claims in Ukraine, it will be hollow. He has already lost and lost big. The Ukrainian people will never stop resisting. And the West will never forget nor forgive Putin's savagery.

And unfortunately, it’s only going to get worse for those poor Russian conscripts conned by the lie that they’re somehow doing Ukraine a favor.

The Russian army is essentially a mechanized force, following tactical doctrines laid down in 1944-45 for a tank war in Europe. Its soldiers are not trained to fight in the streets like, say, the US Army. And look at how difficult Iraq was to control for the world’s best-armed, best trained professional fighting force (some may argue the US Army isn’t that, but it is still a great army). Thing is, once those poor Russian motherfucks climb out of their tanks (the ones that haven't been turned into Roman Candles by a Javelin missile fired from a seemingly empty bombed apartment block), they will be sniped at, Molotov cocktailed, knifed, or shot at by former school teachers, dentists, IT workers, nurses, horticulturalists, ad execs and so on.

It's a grim picture all around. Unfortunately, it's likely to get worse. Many observers are saying that there's no "off-ramp" for Putin. He can’t and won’t stop. Withdrawing will be a personal and professional failure that could end with his, well, end. Likewise, the chances that Ukraine and its people will roll over are zero.

So where's this war going?

There has been talk about chemical and biological weapons. Russia claims Ukraine has been developing them in partnership with the US. This is denied by Washington. The counterclaim is that Russia is merely paving the way to using those WMDs itself, running a false flag up the pole.

Frankly, I think the use of non-nuclear WMD is inevitable. Most likely these agents will be used in the battle for Kyiv. Why? Because the Russian strategic military think tank must realize ultimately that bombing Ukraine back to the stone age is a zero-sum game. At some stage, Russia must have calculated that a financial benefit would accrue to it for the invasion — Ukraine has (had) a healthy iron and steel industry, exported billions in electrical equipment and machinery, and was something of a food bowl. It had a significant  GDP. But once it's all turned to craters and dust, where’s the benefit? Biological and chemical weapons will be turned on Ukraine because those particular weapons keep the body count high, and therefore continued pressure on the Ukraine government to capitulate, while leaving the power grid, the railways, the roads, the sewerage systems, and all the other important utilities in working order. Depressing, I know, but that’s war today.

At home, in Russia, Russians largely don't know what's going on in Ukraine. Putin and his enablers have put the free press to the sword (either literally or figuratively), by killing uncompromising journalists and, most recently, threatening massive jail terms for posting stories that conflict with the Kremlin's official line. (Calling the business going on in Ukraine "a war" will get you a 15-year jail term.) The internet is strangled. Facebook is banned (so I guess it's not all bad), as is Tiktok, Instagram, Whatsapp, and others. The inconvenient truth, however, is the body count. That's one is hard to hide. The old USSR racked up 15,000 casualties over the ten years of its war subduing Afghanistan, a reality that ushered the CCCP on its way to the junkyard of history. As aforementioned, casualties in less than three weeks in Ukraine have blown past 11,000. So increasingly, sooner or later, the mothers of Mother Russia will be wondering what the fuck happened to their sons who they thought went off to peel spuds for a year while undertaking their "universal military obligation" (as Russia calls its draft). It's unlikely many of these moms were aware their boys were dodging bullets across the border in a sovereign nation many Russians regard as kin.

Add this pressure to the ever-increasing strain that the crushing sanctions are doing to the Russian economy, the worthless ruble, the tanked stock market, the evident evacuation of all western brands and consumer goods in shopping malls, and Russia will sooner or later wake up and ask with one voice, "What the fuck?"

And that is why Putin will very soon be gagging for the West to engage with him militarily. Vlad the Bad is soon going to need a far bigger narrative than the one currently being spun for the reasons underpinning his "special military operation". His rationale will need to trigger the same kind of ardent fervor generated by Ukrainians in the defense of their nation. A battle for Russia’s survival against the hateful West, fought on Russia's very doorstep is the kind of do-or-die narrative he will need. The big bad West. It worked for the USSR, right?

And at the end of that unfortunate tunnel, we will have WWIII.

The crazy thing here is that all this death and destruction has been conjured out of nothing because of one man's ambition and ego. Indeed, it really does seem that with Putin, life is imitating art. He has become a villain in the mold of Fleming’s Ernst Stavro Blofeld, 007’s great nemesis. I bet Putin is even…a cat lover!

JJust crazy enough to work

I don't know who it was who said that money solves everything. The bigger the problem, the more money you need to solve it. Every catastrophe has its price. So, with that in mind, here’s my suggestion. It might sound glib but I am actually serious about this. You, me, all of us should band together and retire Vladimir Putin. How do we do it? We do it the way these things are achieved in the 21st century —  we CrowdFund it. No listen, hear me out. An Indiegogo campaign is established to raise $100,000,000, a hundred million US paid to any individual, entity, or company who retires Putin from politics. What that retirement looks like or how it’s achieved is up to whoever does the retiring, if you get my drift. Maybe Vladimir is packed off to the island of Elba - that has some poetry to it. Or committed to the endless queues of the Seven Dwarf Ride Train at Disneyworld. CrowdFunding it. Just crazy enough to work, right?

In fact, there are plenty of ways to retire someone, and Putin has himself come up with some pretty creative approaches over the years. Who knows, maybe one or more of those oligarchs in his inner circle might put up the lion’s share of the cash for someone else to pull the rug out. Frankly, I don’t care. The crux of the matter is simply this. The world needs Putin to go.

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