Russia is invading Ukraine

[etoven]

the fact Putin has open access to nuclear launch codes should keep us up at night, he's gambling everything on this war and who knows what desperate action he'd undertake if he loses.

Yeah, Putin's increasingly unhinged tone is very seriously worrying.  The West needs to make it clear to Putin that we are not and will not militarily intervene, keep him from ending the world just because his war is going badly...

Here's the somewhat interesting part of that so far though -- so far, Putin hasn't been using Russia's usual "blast the target area into oblivion with artillery" tactics.  Russia never cares about some civilian casualties, of course, but so far the Russian army actually isn't just indiscriminately leveling cities, they are leaving them mostly intact.  If this changes the civilian deathtoll will dramatically increase, and the longer things go on the more he probably gets tempted towards it... since his initial plan, of a quick victory followed by folding Ukraine and Belarus back into Russia, is failing. Regardless of the military outcome, many Ukrainians clearly believe in their nation now and don't want to be Russians again.  Thank goodness Putin's plan is failing, people deserve self-determination.

Despite their struggles though, the fact is that Russia absolutely can win if they want to win the war; they are making slow gains in some areas, and have the troops to win eventually if they want to lose enough men to do it.   Ukraine has done far better than most anyone expected and is surviving Russian attacks impressively well, helped by floods of anti-tank rockets I am sure, but... they are still badly outnumbered and the war is early.  If Putin can manage to resupply his troops better and chooses an even more evil "wipe out the cities with artillery" strategy he can win, though would that be a victory worth having, on top of a steaming pile of rubble?

But right now, again, Putin isn't doing that, yet.  There have been war crimes I'm sure, but most of the fighting seems to be between the armies.  Ukraine still has working water, electricity, internet, cellphone service, and cable TV.  In areas not being attacked services continue operating.  There are even still Ukrainian fighter jets and combat drones!  You'd think a great power like Russia, even one with extremely low morale due to the horrendously awful reasoning for the war ("Putin wants Ukraine back"), but Russia's tactics here are just bizarre.  They keep throwing troops in without breaking the other sides' air defenses  and such much at all, based on a presumption of instant Ukrainian collapse that were proven wrong... so they've just kept throwing people in?  Uh.

Russia's not weak militarily though, not with enough nukes to destroy the world many times over.  But it's clear their army is full of corruption and is too reliant on dated tactics.  Anti-tank missiles have rendered tanks somewhat outdated...  It is good for Ukraine and democracy that Russia's army is such a mess, though, an easy victory followed by absorbing Ukraine into Russia would be a pretty tragic ending of a promising young democracy.

I think that, at the core of it, Russia should have seen all of their European allies / subject nations leaving them for the West  (Belarus excepted) and been introspective about it -- 'What are we doing wrong?  Why do so many nations that once believed in our system now cling to NATO?'  And such.  But instead, all Putin can think of is "solve the problem with force, MAKE them obey if they don't want to."  It's sad stuff to see.

Yep, before the end of the day win or lose putin is going to regret every once of that decision.