What’s more interesting is how fantastically reckless the Russians are with their equipment and troops, and how poor their logistics and communications appear. Those vehicles driving bumper to bumper indicates they are confident there is zero risk of attack. Yet they don’t have control over the airspace? Several days into the invasion?
Something doesn’t add up.
I can't imagine there is an "ace up his sleeve" at this point. If it was there from the start, why wait till now once so much of the world has already turned against you. From my (quite uninformed!) perspective it seems that plan A (Take Ukraine Quickly) may have already failed and the cost of a slow drawn out war is meeting much more international response and resistance from Ukraine than anticipated.
Compared to what the Russian army is capable of doing to civilian population centers, they’re actually restraining themselves so far. I’m terrified that the gloves might come off…
But here all failures are in the spotlight and combine, you can't escape them or bullshit it away. That's why Putin is getting desperate and waving with nuclear arms. Big question is how west will see it - I call it desperate bluffing, but that tiny little chance has dire consequences...
I recently heard the joke: "What's the shittiest job now?" "Putin's poison tester."
As a consolation, the people who are actually responsible for pushing the big red button have proved to be reasonable cold-blooded types not so eager to engage in genocide, especially Stanislav Petrov and Vasily Arkhipov.