Post by Old Badger on Jun 27, 2023 14:35:14 GMT -5
See I go away for a family visit for a few days and suddenly Russian mercenaries are marching on Moscow...and then they're not. What a mess! And after the event, Putin comes out to thank the regular troops for "defending the Constitution...and freedom." Well, Russia does have a constitution, and Putin does like to act as if he's following it, as when after two terms as President he traded places with his Prime Minister, only to resume the Presidency later, after amending the Constitution to allow 6-year terms instead of 4. Again elected in 2012 and re-elected in 2018, he got the compliant Duma to remove the two-term limit in 2020, so next year he can run for a fifth term. Meanwhile, his regime has cracked down on independent sources of news, foreign and domestic, and restricted opposition political parties, all in the name of "freedom" I guess.
Let's be clear: no matter what the talking heads on TV or the opinion writers in the print media may say, even the most-knowledgeable experts can't tell us for sure whether Putin's hand has the weakened or strengthened by what happened this week. Logically, it would make sense to argue that he's now weaker because he may not seem to be so omnipotent as he did before. But there's an old saying: if you go for the king, you'd better win. Putin's still in power, his military leaders remain in place, the forces that challenged them are hung out to dry, and their leader is in some form of exile (and probably worrying about having an "accidental fall" from a tall building). And the war with Ukraine continues.
Let's be clear: no matter what the talking heads on TV or the opinion writers in the print media may say, even the most-knowledgeable experts can't tell us for sure whether Putin's hand has the weakened or strengthened by what happened this week. Logically, it would make sense to argue that he's now weaker because he may not seem to be so omnipotent as he did before. But there's an old saying: if you go for the king, you'd better win. Putin's still in power, his military leaders remain in place, the forces that challenged them are hung out to dry, and their leader is in some form of exile (and probably worrying about having an "accidental fall" from a tall building). And the war with Ukraine continues.
