- Joined
- Sep 14, 2012
- Messages
- 10,032
- Reaction score
- 4,966
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Independent
That's the problem. He's put himself in a lose-lose situation in terms of long term outcome no matter the status of Crimea he may feel compelled to double down and cause more damage.
That's happened a lot to me when I lose a few hands of poker.
Technically speaking, for him to "win" the domestic PR fight, all he has to do is stay in Crimea till the referendum and then act according to the wishes of the people in Crimea counterbalanced with what the Russians in Russia want.
If he does move into eastern ukraine however... then yes, he'll lose everything. He'll lose the trade agreements with the EU and the USA and that's over 10% of the Russian economy. There is no way he can get that money from elsewhere, not even trading with China. Losing that = recession or even a depression = mass unemployment = mass protests = bye bye 2nd term... his only chance is to have 140% of the population come out to vote again... but he'll have to become RasPutin to do that.
Stay in Crimea... then leave Ukraine alone and then make amends to the keyholders of his economic wellbeing. But again, I can only speak from the perspective of a reasonable person. I don't think putin thinks like you and I would in terms of what's reasonable. Or maybe he does. Idk.