Russia is landlocked or easily cut off.
Russia has vast empty stretches of land without population and transport routes.
Russia's main population centers and easily destructible logistic infrastructure lies to the west.
Russia has nine geostrategically important entry points that have to be secured.
Russia has to expand its sphere of influence to secure them.
Russia lost most of them in the early nineties and declined from Global Power to ignored bystander.
Their demographics works against them.
Their time runs out.
It's an Russian Empire or it's nothing.
If the west fuck it up in the next weeks, it may see a last warning over the baltic sea in form of a light brighter than thousand suns.
p.s.
And yes, I think Putin is mad and paranoid.
And that is the problem.
For those of us in fear of seeing that light brighter than a thousand suns, what do you think fucking up / not fucking up would look like on the part of the west?
Russia too.
Ramp up defense to the max and stay with it. For a long, long time. Do show strength, that is of utter importance.
Do not threaten their geostrategically important entry points they already took back in the last years.
Direct help to Ukraine is risky, but morally unavoidable. Make the Russian pay for it heavily, but that also means the Ukrainians pay heavily. And there is always the risk of that bright light over the baltics.
The Ukrainians may be a bit more than pissed, but the Russians would love to have hands on Odessa, Charkiw and Dnipropetrowsk among other things because of the weapons manufacturer there. I say hands on, they don't need to be there personally. That is what they mean with disarmament of the Ukraine.
You may get a puppet regime there and that admirably tough little fucker Wolodymyr Selenskyj out alive. Oh, and yes, about two to four million Ukrainian refugees that somehow seem to prefer western decadence over Russian brotherhood.
That is what I meant with the Ukrainians will be a bit more than pissed. They are fucked, plain and simple. But then again, all smaller nations that trust global Powers are fucked sooner or later, aren't they?
Get those bloody Euros, especially Germans, get their shit together on their own in the long run. I know that sounds impossible. I have to know, I'm one of them, albeit one of their rarer specimen.
And for a long time it was a good idea for the US not to let them left without supervision. They were responsible for two World Wars, remember? But there is no other way, they, especially the Germans, have to bleed a bit to stand on their own. They are cowardly and comfortable but for now stinking rich, so stirr them up.
Pray Putin dies early in his bed, with or without the help of some less paranoid fraction of the apparatus. I doubt the latter.
If the Russians want to make it on their own, now with a grey Tsar after they had it with red Tsars and before that with real Tsars, or for that matter with the Chinese, let them do it until the arctic melts and they begin to catch the scent of danger there.
In short, do Cold War 2.
And never forget, whatever you do, the Chinese are watching carefully. So show them what may happen. No business, even if it hurts badly.
https://www.kasparov.com/winter-is-coming/
It has multiple publishers but the British/American edition's publisher is Atlantic Books:
Kasparov was always the more intelligent one of the two. But of course he does not have the support of all the corrupt people, and election practices in Russia are not the best. Like opposition candidates not being allowed to run [1].
He has been warning us about Putler for a long time. Probably many people have warned us and anyone who hasn't been living under a rock for the last decade or so, would have realized, what a madman is in power there.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-summit-pipeline-idUS...