If I can join in this discussion, I think your suggestion, Michael, that Putin "just wants it to be seen that he's got the US and European leaders running around meaning Russia is a major, controlling player on the international scene" is spot on.Despite all the frankly hysterical war talk from Biden and Johnson (our very own Poundshop Churchill). - and remember that the Russian invasion was going to happen last Wednesday and now, we're told, will happen "in the coming days" - their threats really amount to little more than doing a Violet Elizabeth Bott: "And I'll thcream and thcream until I'm thick!" Or, to invert Theodore Roosevelt’s statement, their policy is to "speak loudly and carry a tiny stick."Two things might make Putin think again: (1) to clamp down properly on all the corrupt Russian (and other) money sloshing around in the London 'laundromat' - but Johnson will never do that, and (2) to cut the Russians out of the Swift banking network, which Michael referred to - but I read elsewhere (and I can't now remember where) that the European/UK side will never agree to that because it would affect adversely their banking systems and - shock, horror! - they'd lose money! So really there's nothing, apart from a few sanctions that Putin will just laugh at, to exert any pressure.The other significant question is whether there is a real chance of a Russian invasion, and on this I know as much (or as little) as anyone else. But my suspicion - and I really do hope this is wrong - is that it is really no more than a way of extracting concessions from the west. In that, he seems to be doing rather well and can walk away from this saying "See? I made them take me seriously." And I rather doubt that all the stuff about "Ukrainians and Belarusians are our brothers" amounts to anything significant despite the very long and feeble attempt by Putin the mock historian to justify this (http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181) and that what lies behind it is a huge Russian fear, which is, when you think about it, not unreasonable, considering that the country suffered so appallingly in the two world wars. I've never taken terribly seriously the "USSR/Russia wants to take over the world" schtick but feel that what drives the Russian imagination is that fear. And you don’t have to believe that Putin is anything other than a vicious, corrupt thug to accept this view.
Richard Carter ● 1443d