This is not my usual funny, personal story. But I just have to rant for a bit. The world’s in the frying pan. Let’s hope we don’t get dumped into the fire!
Putin may have a gazillion dollars, but money has never been his primary focus. Rebuilding the Soviet Union has always been his plan.
If he was really worried about having a large NATO country on his border, instead of invading Ukraine, he would woo the Ukrainians with promises of cheap oil and gas, and easy passage between the countries. After all, there are lots of ethnic Russians in Ukraine, a shared history and many relatives in the two countries.
If Putin can’t stand the thought of NATO on his border, conquering Ukraine just brings Poland, Hungary and Romania, all NATO countries to his border.
Then what? Putin installs a puppet government in Ukraine and the Ukraines will never accept his government. There will be a never-ending insurgency and until something happens to end it, Ukraine will remain a pile of rubble, bordered by NATO. Ukrainians don’t want to be under the Russian boot. Look what happened to East Germany under Soviet control.
There is no way that a civilised world can accept a country invading its neighbour just because it wants to. Is Moldova next? What happens if Poland, for example doesn’t want to be bordered by the new Soviet Union?
Would that be WWIII? Or has it already started?