Putin’s Pursuit of Glory for Rossiya Is Producing Only Disgrace, Death and Eventually … DEFEAT

Russia’s massive military can conquer Ukraine … but they will not defeat it.

In fact, hundreds (some say more than a thousand) Russian soldiers are now DEAD, hundreds more INJURED … and their progress (?) through Ukraine has been surprisingly slow.

The Ukrainians have fought back — heroically.

They have tasted freedom; enjoyed democratic elections; seen the growth of a vigorous free press; and they are not willing to see it disappear under the boots of Putin’s peasant platoons.

At least not without a fight … a REAL fight, by motivated patriots … trained, skilled and getting increasingly well-armed.

More than 300 Ukrainian soldiers/civilians have been killed, a thousand injured and an estimated 500,000 have fled the country.

Eventually the Russians can obliterate and occupy Kiev, Odessa, Kharkiv and ravage the 233,000 square mile country.

But then will come the Resistance: snipers, homemade bombs, molotov cocktails, saboteurs everywhere.

Russian soldiers will NOT be safe anywhere.

Doesn’t sound like victory or glory for Rossiya to me … in ANY sense of the word.

And at what cost?

Putin clearly under-estimated the degree of unity, widespread condemnation and, yes, actual actions that would be taken by the world’s democracies … not just Europe, the UK, US, Canada, Australia, Japan but several other nations as well throughout the world.

Many countries have closed their airspace completely to Russian airliners; Russian banks have been crippled; Nordstream gas will not flow while Russian aggression in Ukraine continues; many countries have stopped issuing visas to Russians, for business or pleasure; and, the value of the ruble has fallen drastically.

Making things even worse for Russia, on Sunday BP announced it will disengage from a $14 Billion commitment towards Russian oil giant Rosneft. Read that story here; https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/02/27/bp-russia-rosneft-ukraine/

And even usually dictatorship-friendly international sports organizations and racing groups are sending Russia packing.

Yet, we MUST still do MORE!

Cut off ALL Russian banks/financial institutions from the SWIFT exchange system; put a full trade EMBARGO on Russia; ban imports of ALL Russian products (yes, including Vodka!); ban ALL exports to Russia; DENY port access in the free world to ANY shipping line that violates the Russian embargo; and, ban ALL Russian sports, business and cultural institutions/teams from participating in any international activities/competitions/events.

If we are not willing to send troops, we should isolate and treat Russia as a complete pariah: rejected and sanctioned well beyond anything Putin expected.

Does that sound like a Russian victory to you? Putin bringing pride and glory to the Motherland?

Thousands of Russians are already braving Putin’s Politzia to demonstrate, protest and condemn the madman’s illogical, ill-considered and clearly evil onslaught against their Slavic brothers and sisters.

Full isolation/embargo of Russia will increase those in frequency and intensity … and could indeed help influence change. Even dictators today watch the public mood.

I suspect Putin already knows he over-stepped, miscalculated and is paying a much higher price in blood, treasure and influence than he expected going into Ukraine.

But it will still take a lot more pressure to get him to back down … in defeat.

We MUST increase our military support (weapons, munitions) IMMEDIATELY for the brave Ukrainians fighting to save their country’s independence and increase our pressure on Russia’s economy and its political power structure … to bring an early end to Putin’s disastrous war.

Harv Oberfeld

(Follow @harveyoberfeld on Twitter for FREE First Alerts to new postings on this Blog!)

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