Phoebeeno

I can at least understand why, back in December 2021, when Russia issued the West an ultimatum so blatantly absurd and impossible to meet as demanding that NATO “roll back to its 1997 borders,” everyone was clutching their pearls and gasping in horror. But come on. In 2022, Putin suffers a crushing defeat at Kyiv, retreats, and abandons the #1 objective of his blitzkrieg. And then, as if nothing had happened, he shows up at the “peace negotiations” in Istanbul demanding outrageously absurd and impossible conditions, including Ukraine's near-total disarmament and a Russian veto over any Western assistance in the event of another invasion. As if his troops were feasting in Uzhhorod and Lviv instead of having been turned to ashes outside Hostomel and Chernihiv. Fast-forward almost five years. He's suffered defeats outside Kharkiv, in Kherson, in Kupiansk, and near Lyman. He's seen Ukrainian troops invade and occupy Russian territory. He's practically lost his Black Sea Fleet. He's lost some 500,000 soldiers killed alone. He's barely managed to change a front line that has remained largely frozen since 2022. His oil refineries, ports, airfields, and military factories are burning across a vast stretch of Russia, from St. Petersburg to Omsk. He still can't defeat Ukraine even in Donbas, even with the president of the United States in his pocket. And yet he keeps demanding Ukraine's complete capitulation, the surrender of territory without a fight, the dismantling of Ukraine's defenses. And again and again, he effectively demands that NATO be rolled back and that the entire former Warsaw Pact territory in Europe be handed over to him. As if he were Stalin in 1952. And the reason isn't just that Putin is an insane gambler who doesn't know when to stop or recognize the limits of what he can realistically demand. It's also that, year after year, the free world has repeatedly and spectacularly demonstrated what Putin clearly interprets as weakness, fear, and an unwillingness to stand up for itself. And therefore, as an invitation to escalate even further, to make ever more outrageous demands, and to engage in ever more brazen blackmail, despite the obvious mismatch between his megalomaniac ambitions, his rhetoric, and his actual results on the ground.