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Posted March 2,2022..

When the USSR invaded Afghanistan the Soviet troops would steal (TV sets in particular were a favorite) from the Afghans because their standard of living was higher than that of the Russians. To say that dogs were treated better than Soviet troops would not be an overstatement. Hence it would not be a stretch of the imagination that the inept Russian organization and operations in the Ukraine are systemic in nature. That the varied select units deployed were selected because of their operational capabilities which makes the quality and reliability of the bulk of the Russian army suspect?

President Putin's maternal Grandfather was Lenin's and then Stalin's personal cooks. Here young Putin had a first hand narrative of the goings on at the highest level of the Soviet. Putin during his tenure with the KGB was at first monitoring westerners traveling in the Leningrad area and then in the foreign intelligence service stationed in Dresden in GDR where he used travelers to the west to conduct spy operations. He also was connected to computer and communications operations. Later after the fall of the USSR he monitored and sought western investment into the St Petersburg area . Here one might speculate that considering Putin's educational background in international law and market economies that his activities in the GDR were not exactly transparent and that he had developed knowledge about potential investors in Russia. Which he then used to make his friends rich.

Previsously written:

Putin's calculation is that the cost of opposing him is to collapse the Global Economy of Scale. The world is laboring under such massive debt loads that one good shove can collapse the entire house of cards.

To think Putin is only moving on the Ukraine is to ignore his long game. Which is, was to create divisiveness in the EU/NATO, diminish US power by exposing that the emperor has no cloths and increasing Russia's influence in the EU as the go to power broker instead of the US. Putin smelled the blood of weakness in western and US resolve and as such made a calculated move. It may or may not work out for him?

In the former occupied nations of Eastern Europe one can not under estimate the hatred for Russians based upon their former bad behavior. Remember when the Germans marched into the Ukraine in 41 the people at first cheered their liberation from the heavy hand of the Soviet before they found out about what Hitler had in mind for them. Old animosities are long remembered and die hard