old salt wrote: ↑Fri Feb 25, 2022 10:14 pmThank goodness we got rid of that guy. Things are so much better now, especially for the Ukrainians.
I wonder why they waited 5 years to invade.
Putin has obviously been planning and building this up for a long time. Plan B was most likely to invade in 2020 or early 2021, not accounting for a pandemic and betting on Trump coasting to a re-election win had the pandemic and subsequent events not occurred. Putin had been very successful at dividing US sentiment towards both Russia and Ukraine, and he had been successful at driving division in Europe, destabilizing the EU and Ukraine. Russia suffered after Crimea, and if Hilary had won this invasion may have happened in early 2017 (Plan A). But Putin struck gold with the 2016 election and was granted a stay due to Trump's support, giving him 4 years to really build up strength.
He enjoyed support from the US administration after Trump won and used that lull as a springboard to keep turning the divisive screws everywhere.
The pandemic threw a huge monkey wrench into his plans IMHO, pausing everything. Why do you think they pushed the Sputnik vaccine so fast vs everyone else? Then Trump lost, a spotlight fixed on Ukraine with all the news about his crimes and Biden's own issues. Then Brexit happened, ironically strengthening the rest of the EU due to its disaster. Putin had to postpone, hoping things would cool down a bit.
With no pandemic, a Trump re-election and Biden scandals :substantiated" in Ukraine, Ukraine would have been an afterthought and the result of an invasion would be Crimea all over again. Ukraine had been getting supplied since 2014, but if no one actually cared what happened, big losses in the invasion were acceptable and could be realpolitik'd over.
But the pandemic happened and Putin couldn't wait forever. He's getting old and Europe and NATO may have eventually brought Ukraine into the fold. So we got Plan C, invasion this week.