Yesterday, Biden blustered about the consequences that Russia will suffer should it invade Ukraine. And there is the possibility that we are watching an elaborately choreographed as the various governments involved already have planned the show’s ending, with everybody getting something they want. But if one looks at what Russia has been doing, as well as what Putin sees when he looks West, he holds most of the cards in this game.

In the early spring of last year, Russia mobilized troops to the Ukraine border to a strength of as many as 100,000 troops and conducted military exercises sending invasion threat shock waves through Ukraine and NATO.

According to a summary in Wikipedia, the NATO reaction was to increase the tension.

At the June 2021 Brussels Summit, NATO leaders reiterated the decision taken at the 2008 Bucharest Summit that Ukraine would become a member of the Alliance with the Membership Action Plan (MAP) as an integral part of the process and Ukraine’s right to determine its own future and foreign policy, of course without outside interference.^[11] NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also stressed that Russia will not be able to veto Ukraine’s accession to NATO, as we will not return to the era of spheres of interest, when large countries decide what smaller ones should do.^[12]

In July 2021, Putin published an “article” posted on the Kremlin website expressing that the citizens of Russia and Ukraine have common bonds of language, religion, and centuries of common history. By doing so, he was warning that, if Ukraine entered the European Union or joined NATO or if anti-Russian neofascist elements took control of the government, that would put Russia in an untenable position. He concluded in this article that they remain “one people,” although he conceded that, ultimately, the future of Ukrainians was up to its people to decide.

Image: Vladimir Putin. YouTube screen grab.

As the Russian forces now build up to an estimated strength of 150,000 troops along Ukraine’s border, Putin must have in his mind the disaster the United States military suffered in its withdrawal from Afghanistan. He must also be considering the war readiness of soldiers forced into getting inoculated with vaccines that have had only a few months of long-term safety studies. And he must sit in wonder about a divided American public that is being forced into mandatory vaccinations and still has questions about the validity of its elections. In other words, he doesn’t see America as a strong force.

And then, still looking west, but closer to home, Putin must be struck by the fact that Germany cannot voice a strong objection when it is about to become dependent on Russian natural gas.

Russia has unchallenged air superiority, which gives it the ability to knock out Ukraine’s communications. It can also launch targeted cyber-attacks. In other words, Putin is building up an overwhelming force very much as the United States did before the start of the first Gulf War. The Russian Divisions are forming a rapid conquest capability as the world sits and watches.