Kiev burning.

[The Skeletal Atheist]

Putin hatin' on gays and yet he takes the backdoor to Ukraine.

:rollin:

[aileron]

That being said, I've read a couple articles that attempt to explain how this is no win for him so it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

It is a no-win for him now that the troops are there.  There's little doubt he realizes it now that it's too late.  His military leaders spooked him into thinking Russia's North Sea fleet access was in jeopardy.  It probably never was, and so Putin has virtually nothing to gain by this and lots to lose.  He'll probably try to keep the troop deployment as low profile as possible before making a face-saving excuse to withdraw them.

A couple have suggested that the U.N. will fast track a very eager to join Georgia into the U.N...

Do you mean EU?  Georgia has been an independent member state of the U.N. for years.

[Moriarty]

That being said, I've read a couple articles that attempt to explain how this is no win for him so it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

It is a no-win for him now that the troops are there.  There's little doubt he realizes it now that it's too late.  His military leaders spooked him into thinking Russia's North Sea fleet access was in jeopardy.  It probably never was, and so Putin has virtually nothing to gain by this and lots to lose.  He'll probably try to keep the troop deployment as low profile as possible before making a face-saving excuse to withdraw them.

A couple have suggested that the U.N. will fast track a very eager to join Georgia into the U.N...

Do you mean EU? Georgia has been an independent member state of the U.N. for years.

Most likely, which is why I probably couldn't find the articles when I looked again. :) Although I am quite sure they read U.N., which would be their mistake.

[The Skeletal Atheist]

That being said, I've read a couple articles that attempt to explain how this is no win for him so it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

It is a no-win for him now that the troops are there.  There's little doubt he realizes it now that it's too late.  His military leaders spooked him into thinking Russia's North Sea fleet access was in jeopardy.  It probably never was, and so Putin has virtually nothing to gain by this and lots to lose.  He'll probably try to keep the troop deployment as low profile as possible before making a face-saving excuse to withdraw them.

A couple have suggested that the U.N. will fast track a very eager to join Georgia into the U.N...

Do you mean EU?  Georgia has been an independent member state of the U.N. for years.

Hopefully he'll find a way to find a way pull out to save face. He could just as easily go for crushing Ukraine's military in order to send a "don't fuck with me" message. It seems unlikely, by crazier things have happened. We're a miscalculation or a stray bullet away from war.

It's all on Putin now. I hate the guy, but I really hope he makes the right decision. If he doesn't then this will turn really really ugly really fast.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

This can and probably will destroy Russian economy.  Losing weight with the G8 etc, diplomatic isolation. Bad move.

[Shol'va]

[youtube:3684u1em]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2nklduvThs[/youtube:3684u1em]