so what.... exactly was putin/russia expecting to get out of this whole thing anyway? it seems like all they've managed to do so far is make an enemy of basically the entire world and i don't see how they could have expected it to turn out differently
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@Felthry So a bit on the "why" here, because quite a few experts on this have been analyzing and speculating on this since long before the 2014 overthrow of Yanukovych. The two main drivers of Putin's personal ambitions with Ukraine appear to be his colonialistic desire to rebuild the Soviet state and to continue Russia's rule as a petrol state, both of which make Ukraine a particularly important target for him. A buffer to NATO is also a factor.

@Felthry (If you'd like sourcing on this lmk. I personally started researching this when trying to figure out why the hell 45 was blackmailing Zelenskyy at Putin's behest a few years ago.)

The odd part about this is it... may actually be that simple, because this is Putin's personal war, and he rules his country and inner circle through coercion. So small man who is an increasingly isolated sociopath, with wins carving out smaller territories...

@Felthry ... decides to go all in, without any of the discipline, supply chain economic understanding, or wartime discipline necessary to do so, and this is the disaster that follows.

Re, NATO: this is extremely reductive, but consider it a defense alliance of necessity established to prevent a repeat of World War 2. Basically, it establishes a unified defensive bloc that ensures all of Europe will defend itself against a repeat of Hitler.

@Goldkin oh, i thought it was trade agreements?

also why isn't russia part of it then, they were on the same side as the rest of europe in ww2
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@Felthry For the most part? Hesitancy and suspicion of the West after attempts to become a capitalist nation failed miserably, leading to Putin's rise in the first place. Which led to trade agreements with India and China in lieu of the West, while using the West primarily as a vehicle of laundering plundered wealth and assets for Putin's oligarchs and Putin himself.

@Felthry This suspicion of the Western model as poisonous and in chronic decline is part of what influenced Putin to instead choose Soviet-style colonial expansion instead of globalized democratic rule. And it seems to be part of why he made such a mistake here in thinking his forces would be hailed as heroes and that Ukraine and the West would simply capitulate and roll over, after his experiences with using Trump and Congress as puppets.

@Felthry In effect, he gave himself too much confidence by having success in narrowly scoped wins in Georgia and Crimea (etc), financial corruption in the West, and a seeming sincere belief that his Soviet coercive model of rule is superior, and that support in Ukraine was Western influence, not sincerely held identity and a desire to not live under Russian occupation.

All a recipe for... a poorly reasoned, terrible war on Ukraine.

@Felthry So that has now happened, and we can see the impact. His attempts to then transform Ukraine into a puppet state again (under Yanukovych or a similar leadership) have fallen through, so he's now resorting to what he did with Assad in Syria: bombing runs to level Ukraine instead, then install his own people by force or by proxy after the infrastructure is razed to the ground.

That is approximately the shape of it, as I understand it.

@Goldkin it just feels like everything he's doing is just going to make an enemy of the entire world, and i can't understand why he either can't see that or doesn't care
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@Felthry Sociopath's gonna sociopath, especially given he's surrounded himself with yes men. Speculation on why he's now more erratic now, after decades of measured action, ranges from him boxing himself in due to covid to simply operating on poor information and pivoting to what has worked before.

Irony is, this is part of what lead to the fall of the Soviet state he so desperately wants to rebuild in the first place.

@Goldkin I also fail to see how anyone could have lived through the later years of soviet russia and think "yes, good, this is how i want things to be, i will make things like this again"
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