He's getting old. This is Putin's last opportunity to cement himself into history.
Putin still enjoys tremendous domestic support. He has no effective opposition. Putin wants to claim Ukraine. Ukraine can't fight Russia alone. Will the West fight harder for Ukraine than Russia/Putin?
What happens if Ukraine's leaders are assassinated?
Stronger sanctions against Russia? Europe still depends on Russian fossil fuel, as do China and others, so leverage is limited. Strangling European energy supply remains a weapon at Putin's disposal. Economic MAD, sure, but who's going to back down first? The autocrat, or the union of democratic states?
But does he really? The economic situation is not great, the Southern Ukraine border has been a mess for almost a decade, COVID wasn't exactly a success (their vaccine didn't perform as well as expected)... There has been a lot of grumbling over the last couple of years. In fact, I think he counts on this conflict to shore up his internal support significantly.
> He has no effective opposition.
Well, when he did, he made sure to kill or jail them, so that's not really an indicator I'd rely on.
I agree that there is a good chance things might not be as bad as they look for him, though. It's easy for us to talk tough in February, with Springtime on the doorstep and enough gas to last several months; the real challenge will be September / October.
Germany is much better connected to the gas pipelines of neighbouring European countries than it used to be, and Europe has extensive strategic reserves. The US does too and might be willing to share some of them. We’re also coming out of winter.
This is going to be hard, the cost will be heavy, but much, much heavier on Russia. But we’re at war, whether we like it or not, and we have to do this.
Putin still enjoys tremendous domestic support. He has no effective opposition. Putin wants to claim Ukraine. Ukraine can't fight Russia alone. Will the West fight harder for Ukraine than Russia/Putin?
What happens if Ukraine's leaders are assassinated?
Stronger sanctions against Russia? Europe still depends on Russian fossil fuel, as do China and others, so leverage is limited. Strangling European energy supply remains a weapon at Putin's disposal. Economic MAD, sure, but who's going to back down first? The autocrat, or the union of democratic states?