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Escape To Ukraine?
As with anything that happens inside Vladimir Putin's Russia, the March 22 massacre at Crocus City Hall will forever be regarded with more than a little suspicion. That's even more true in the context of a grinding, horrific war the nature of which is now such that Ukraine likely takes the old "all's fair" adage quite literally.
At the (not entirely trivial) risk of stumbling into naivety, it seems exceedingly unlikely that Volodymyr Zelensky would involve Ukraine directly in the heinous, up-cl
“When the Taliban says you’re a despicable example of humanity, you’re really going places in the world as a Sunni jihadist.”
I can’t tell if I hate or love that you can pull a laugh out of me while reading about something so horrible.
Maybe the pretext Putin’s been waiting for to use a tactical nuke. But if not, absent Ukraine’s surrender, he’ll probably find another.
Possible. My best guess is that Putin will not use a tactical nuke until the US election is decided. If Putin’s operatives lose the US election, then a tactical nuke is in play.
Putin’s analogizing of the massacre on Friday to Hitler’s Germany is worthy of attention, but not in the way he hopes. More than anything, the “quick” apprehension of the perpetrators suggests a false-flag Reichstag-fire-type event prepared/allowed by Russian security forces. Putin has done it before (the 1999 apartment bombings), and the fact the atrocity on Friday is already being used by Putin to escalate his rhetoric vis-a-vis Ukraine (referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “war” instead of a “special military operation”) seems like a tell.
Makes me wonder if Putin owes a tin foil h/t to Netanyahu for the blueprint of wittingly or unwittingly countenancing an intelligence failure to justify a wholly disproportionate reaction that might otherwise garner more rigorous international scrutiny, if not condemnation. I would hate it even more if a good faith US intelligence tip merely gave Putin just enough time to figure out how to make lemonade.