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Putin is trapped in a quagmire and doesn't know how to get out
Link to tweet
Tweet text:
Max Boot 🇺🇦
@MaxBoot
Russia launched a “war of choice” based on bad intelligence. The war is going badly, but once troops are committed, emotions run high and national prestige is on the line. Both escalation and withdrawal are too painful to contemplate. Putin is trapped.
washingtonpost.com
Opinion | Putin is trapped in a quagmire and doesn’t know how to get out
For the Kremlin, both escalation and withdrawal are too painful to contemplate.
10:29 AM · May 9, 2022
Max Boot 🇺🇦
@MaxBoot
Russia launched a “war of choice” based on bad intelligence. The war is going badly, but once troops are committed, emotions run high and national prestige is on the line. Both escalation and withdrawal are too painful to contemplate. Putin is trapped.
washingtonpost.com
Opinion | Putin is trapped in a quagmire and doesn’t know how to get out
For the Kremlin, both escalation and withdrawal are too painful to contemplate.
10:29 AM · May 9, 2022
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/09/putin-victory-day-russia-ukraine-quagmire/
No paywall
https://archive.ph/xdxAS
Always grandiose and fascistic, the Victory Day celebrations in Moscow were more restrained than usual on Monday, with the normal aerial display canceled on account of the “weather,” even though the skies were clear. Some experts had worried that Russian President Vladimir Putin would declare war on Ukraine and a total mobilization of Russian society while threatening the West with nuclear weapons. There was even speculation that he might parade Ukrainian prisoners through Red Square as in a Roman triumph. None of that came to pass. Putin was defiant but subdued, trying to portray Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine as a preemptive response to a looming Ukrainian invasion of Russia.
It was ludicrous and pathetic — but also strangely reassuring. There has been much discussion about whether Putin is rational, because attacking Ukraine with such a small army was an act of lunacy. The evidence suggests that, while Putin is isolated and prone to miscalculation, he is not insane.
He appears to grasp, as I argued last week, that mobilization would bring more problems than it would solve. It would risk undermining Russia’s already battered economy, along with popular support for his criminal regime, but it would not deliver any immediate military benefits. Mobilizing more troops would take many months — and it would be exceedingly difficult to train, equip or supply them. As for using nuclear weapons, that would be the action of a madman who fears that the end is near. Putin’s troops are carrying out unspeakable war crimes, but he is far from Hitler-in-the-bunker territory.
Putin seems to understand when the war is not going his way — hence his withdrawal from the environs of Kyiv at the beginning of April rather than risk the complete destruction of his forces. He gambled on winning a more limited victory in Donbas in eastern Ukraine, but that’s not happening, either. The Institute for the Study of War reported on Sunday: “Russian forces did not make any significant advances on any axis of advance on May 8.” Putin is running out of options.
*snip*
12 replies
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"We have accomplished every goal we set out to achieve. It's with pride and victory that we bring our troops home". 
The rest of the World knows he's a LOSER but he can continue to use propaganda at home in Russia. 
Maybe save face there at least for a little while. 
