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Putin’s Ever-widening War Continues to Widen
Paul Craig Roberts
Reality it seems is beyond Putin’s grasp. Following today’s 91 drone attack on Putin’s residence, the Russian president quickly reaffirmed his commitment to peace negotiations.
The attempt to kill Putin occurred doing the peace negotiations and a White House report that Trump and Putin have just had a “positive” telephone conversation. Putin told Trump that there would be retaliation against Ukraine, but Putin still shows no intention of using sufficient force to bring the four year old conflict to an end. Apparently, as long as Putin can hold on to the prospect of a peaceful settlement, the conflict will continue.
Contemplate the increase in seriousness of the Western provocations each time the war widens. Not only were all of the weapons sent that the West declared would never be sent, not only were sanctions added to sanctions, not only are Russian civilians, power infrastructure, and airports subject to Ukrainian attack, but also the Russian strategic bombing fleet and now today an attack on President Putin’s life.
By failing to quickly end the conflict by force, Putin invites increasingly serious provocations. At some point, the provocations will reach a level that Putin can no longer ignore and will result in the outbreak of generalized war. This is a reckless risk to continue to take, not an act of diplomacy.
Putin’s irresolution at war has been explained as Russia’s reluctance to kill very many of their Ukrainian brothers. However, the long drawn out village by village slugfest has resulted in many times the Russian and Ukrainian casualties that would have occurred from a quick victory.
From whatever angle we view it, Putin’s conduct of the conflict is so defective that it is inexplicable. Nothing good can come of it.