Is Ukraine the only entre on Putin's menu?

Posted on: February 24, 2022 at 10:29:40 CT

"It appears that Putin is going to get as much done as he can in this useful condition, having chosen to breach the peace. Something to think about is that when his amphibious force was assembling in the Black Sea – a process that started weeks ago – ships transited from the Northern and Baltic Fleets. During their voyages to the Black Sea, there were some reports that they had their complement of embarked forces loaded for the transit. In other words, they wouldn’t have to pull into Russia’s Black Sea ports to load their assault force.

The advantages of that for Putin are obvious; e.g., there would be no spotlight glaring on the embarkation and no trigger sense to its timing

But what it means is that Putin had already decided even more weeks ago to be ready to do what he’s doing right now.

That’s emblematic of why we would be wrong, I think, to imagine that “Ukraine” is his only objective. It appears Putin has been certain for quite a long time that he will be ready, when conditions are right, to pursue the entire list of demands he presented to NATO in January, and in fact even go beyond that. He’ll be settling at least a couple of scores if he can."

TOC Ready Room 24 Feb 2022: Putin makes his move
https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/2022/02/24/toc-ready-room-24-feb-2022-putin-makes-his-move/#more-6202