Unhindged and panicking? . . . If Putin keeps claiming sanctions are an act of war,

[skip fox]

NATO and USA might wonder what have we got to lose? Why not declare a no-fly zone or strike the convoy or give more fighter jets to Ukrainians?

I'm not arguing for these actions, I observing that Putin appears so angry, frightened, and or deranged that he is giving away any leverage he may have. After all, how much further can he rhetorically go?

Statements like this give an insight into his psychological temperature.

I think he sees his adventure into Ukraine as a mistake and sees the future quagmire he is rushing toward, so he isn't thinking clearly.

Such statements might also indicate how much pressure his feeling at home.

Such statements sound like panic to me.



What do you think?


****************************

On edit:

For context:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-says-western-sanctions-are-akin-declaration-war-2022-03-05/

[relayerbob]

1. Definitely sounds desperate and unhinged

NATO will not say “what do we have to lose”. They are likely trying to find out who in the Russian military wants to take him out.

[Eliot Rosewater]

4. What in the fuck is the problem, most of the people around him must be against this

yet nobody does anything!

FUCK, the WORLD is at stake!

[relayerbob]

25. He's surrounded himself with layers of protection

He's very hard to reach, even for the Russians. The military leaders are almost certainly opposed. That we don't know what is happening doesn't mean nobody is doing anything

[bluestarone]

27. Like i've stated before.

I do NOT think we have to reach him. Let his protection protect him, BUT Just DO NOT listen to him. DON'T do anything he asks. If his protection comes out then deal with them. HE cannot succeed his mission with NO HELP! EDIT to add here. I really feel China is watching this very closely. THEY will sit back and learn. I'm sure Joe and his team KNOW this as well.

[relayerbob]

31. That only works if ...

ALL of the subordinates agree. If even one of them tells Putin wha they are doing, he will have them executed on the spot. IMO, there is really only one way, and that is for a small group to take Putin and anyone around him that doesn't surrender, out.

I agree China is observing all of this very carefully

[bluestarone]

33. True BUT

I'm hoping there are enough AGAINST pooty that this would be covered. I do not know how many security soldiers he has, but i really believe there are LOTS against pooty, when it comes right down to world destruction?

[skip fox]

6. Yes. I wasn't saying NATO and US might actually do this, on that it's a logical response

in order to show how stupid the statement was, and then tried to draw inferences from the it.

[relayerbob]

24. I understand

[JoanofArgh]

2. Putin's trying to threaten war to scare the West into

dropping sanctions. He’s been manipulating the West for years with this kind of shit.

[Irish_Dem]

13. His manipulations have been quite successful, so he will keep doing it.

And keep upping the ante.

[JoanofArgh]

14. Exactly.

[Irish_Dem]

19. Why would he stop manipulating and threatening when it works so well?

[Sneederbunk]

3. When does a sanction become an act of war?

[mitch96]

32. We sanctioned Japan just before WW2.. We were trying to stop the incursion of Japanese

into Mancuria and China.. For a country with no or little natural recourses a ban on steel,coal and rubber was a line crossed.. Hence Dec 7 1941.. They thought the US would back down after they slapped us b/c we were weak and would not respond... ahhhh no.
m

[spooky3]

5. Why not lead him to believe we are cowed but then

Orchestrate a sneak attack?

[Wicked Blue]

7. I say we drop TFG on him

a really nasty weapon

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

8. I think we should tell him we lifted the sanctions...

...the same way he said russia wouldn't invade Ukraine. The sanctions business is only an exercise.

[PortTack]

10. Or like they did..called a temporary cease fire, lured civilians out and killed them!

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

17. I don't think we should kill people.

We do have some history of hiring out for that work.

[BeyondGeography]

12. A special economic operation?

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

16. It's just training to secure the economic borders.

[dutch777]

9. I think an old scared animal with nuclear weapons that feels trapped and cornered is very dangerous

If with all his advance preparation and planning, he couldn't subdue Ukraine, any conventional saber rattling toward the Baltic states or Poland would be a waste of time. So he has nukes, but he knows he'd lose after using any although he could do a lot of damage. Cyber attacks could be an avenue but we are on guard for that and while some attacks could succeed they would likely get the same from us in return and they will again likely get it worse than we do. That leaves the option of cutting off oil and gas to the EU which would further cripple the RU economy due to more loss of western cash but it would likely be a huge economic shock to the west that we would suffer greatly from for some time. The last is his only even decent option assuming he wants to keep his military largely intact to control his internal dissent problems.

[C_U_L8R]

11. Putin: I didn't declare war, you declared war.

We're dealing with someone as twisted and stupid as Trump. There is no reasoning.

[maxsolomon]

15. He's not unhinged, he's not panicking, he's not frightened. He's gaslighting.

Everything he says publically is gaslighting, and purposeful. He is rational. He is a sociopathic Autocrat who has planned this invasion for decades.

DU really needs to knock off the "Putin is losing it" talk. He's not. He has months to conquer Ukraine.

[Elessar Zappa]

20. Many experts disagree with you.

They’re saying we don’t know whether he’s still a rational actor or not. He may or may not be.

[boston bean]

23. Maybe he was acting "rational" to achieve a goal.

[maxsolomon]

35. Is it possible he's lost the plot? Sure.

But it's not probable.

"Lots of experts" are speculating.

[Irish_Dem]

21. Maxsolomon: I think your explanation is a reasonable one.

Putin has planned his entire adult life to take down western democracies and be THE world power.

He was successful in weakening the US, and he is emboldened.
The time is right.

He is just following through on his plans.

[uponit7771]

26. +1, except he doesn't have months. They can cut off support by ground and he has weeks

[brush]

29. Things have not gone as he anticipated. It's pretty apparent...

he didn't think the west would respond so quickly and decisively with sanctions. He also didn't think the Ukrainians would fight back so fiercely and prolong an invasion he thought would last a matter of a few days. And it's clear now it will take weeks, months maybe to succeed, if it happens at all.

IMO you're giving him too much credit. All those weeks of troop build ups just to see his forces running out of fuel, spare parts and food, for God's sake. If he planned that for years he sure did a poor job of planning.

And the nuclear threats are clearly beyond the pale. He's acting as if he's the only one with nukes. That remains a game of mutually assured destruction and brings into question who is really thinking rationally? I dare say it's not the one making nuclear war threats.

[mitch96]

34. As the saying goes, the first casualty of war is the truth...nt

[EarlG]

18. My guess, this is mostly for internal consumption

He has to try to keep the Russian people on his side. It makes sense that he’s going to blame the rest of the world for Russia’s imminent economic collapse (even though it was his own actions which prompted the sanctions). He wants to make sure Russians feel like they’re the victims in all this.

[skip fox]

28. Makes good sense.

[Gaugamela]

22. What's frightening to me is that for Putin there's no off-ramp.

He miscalculated and he knows it, but you can’t start a war and then balk and say “My bad!” and turn around and go home. All he has left is escalation until it all comes crashing down.

[Chainfire]

30. At the end of WWII, Hitler demanded that all of Germany's infastructure

necessary for survival after the war be destroyed on the theory that all of the good Germans were already dead. I can see Putin fitting that mold. If I go, I am taking the world with me.

[Gaugamela]

36. Unfortunately, it's a common motif for cult leaders, such as Jim Jones, David Koresh, and

the UFO cult guy. Our generals determined they wouldn’t let Trump go out with a bang, hopefully Putin’s generals have the same perspective. A strong sense of self-preservation would seem to be a necessary characteristic of generals.