Is Putin trying to save his friend Trump from all his legal problems by his moves on

[Samrob]

Ukraine and elsewhere? Or is Putin merely taking advantage of all the inside Intel info Trump shared with him as well as Russian bugging of the Oval Office when they visited Trump there and had access to the WH?

There is no telling how much damage Trump and the GOP have done to this country from an Intel and Military perspective. The Russians were all over the WH on their visits with Trump and I am sure those GOP visits to Russia were not all clean.

[C_U_L8R]

1. Treasonous Trump merely softened the battlefield

And just about every Republican sold us out for Putin's advantage.

[JohnSJ]

9. +++

[Walleye]

2. Our enemies are taking advantage of the division and chaos in this country. It has made us weaker

[TheBlackAdder]

15. Yep, and China is also taking advantage and seems to be moving on Taiwan.

[Tommy Carcetti]

3. Doubtful. At least as as a primary motive.

Putin wants Ukraine and as much territory that was lost at the end of the Soviet empire as possible. That’s his overwhelming primary motive.

However Putin is also an agent of chaos who likes embarrassing and showing up the West. That’s why he worked to get Trump elected. That’s also why he didn’t bother to make this move while Trump was in office. He has much more value creating headaches for leaders who he sees as adversarial. Not much value if he creates problems for one of his stooges.

It’s all about framing.

[JohnSJ]

8. +++

[amaico]

4. He planned the invasion for a midterm year

Putin is a republican.

[NightWatcher]

5. He's sped up his move to remake the Soviet Union since he doesn't have a friend in the Whitehouse

We're going to see some 80's Cold War (w hotspots) action.

[ariadne0614]

6. Similar thoughts have been dancing in my head.

The Republicans have become so brazenly proficient at sowing confusion with a blanket of lies, that it's as if they were trained by Putin himself. They've normalized a sickening formula of gaslighting and projection, but it could all fall apart as the Jan 6th committee gets closer to going public with prime time hearings. They're tearing down our democratic republic and aligning with authoritarian regimes, with Putin as leader of the pack.

[JohnSJ]

7. No. Putin is doing what he is doing because he views Ukraine independence as a threat, and

believes that will open the door to the expansion of NATO if an independent Ukraine wants it.

Ukraine is the breadbasket where a lot of food is produced, and Russia wants to control that. An invasion of Ukraine has the potential to create food shortages, and even higher food prices.

This is just another disaster that trump caused, and our illustrious media seems to ignore that. Add that to the mishandling of the pandemic by trump, which brought us the shortages and inflation, the world is in a very serious situation.

There is no question trump was putin’s puppet, with his desire to get the US out of NATO and the UN, but Putin is not doing this for trump, he is doing this to control the resources of Ukraine for Russia.

The Flynns, Jill Steins, trumps, etc. were useful idiots to Putin’s goals

[jcgoldie]

10. Putin DGAF about Trump

He was a useful idiot… now he’s nothing except a humorous diversion to watch him make half of Americans implode.

[Buckeyeblue]

11. Pardon the football analogy but this is an early go-deep play to see what the defense does

Russia, China and the Saudis will be watch intently to see how the US and other NATO countries react as the Russians became more and more hostile.

I think it Russia will abandoned their invasion for now. But look for them to move forward with their plans in late spring/early summer.

For 2 reasons. The first is the winter Olympics in China. If there is a war in Ukraine no one will pay attention to the Olympics. Russia won't do that to their new friends.

Second, Russia will adjust their strategy based on the reaction they see. Also, if there are further economic sanctions, it will be easy on the Russians if those happen when the weather is warmer.

Understand, I'm never right about these things but it's a good brain exercise to speculate.

[Amishman]

12. Putin doesn't care about Trump, this has nothing to do with Trump

The orange idiot was just that, an easily manipulated dupe. Now that Trump is out of power, Putin has little use for him.

This is about Putin taking whatever he can grab by whatever means is most expedient - same as everything else he has been doing for many years. He perceives that the US is hopelessly divided and distracted, and that some of our European allies are divided as well. Plus Europe is painfully dependent on Russia for fuel.

He sees weakness and is making his move. My guess actual invasion isn't the goal, it is to cement the threat of invasion in the minds of the world. This would be a major deterrent towards foreign investment, significantly weakening the Ukraine long term, and potentially helping the Russian separatists.

[gab13by13]

13. With Trump back in power

it gives Putin a much better chance to attain his long term goals, ignoring this doesn't make sense to me. Helping Trump by invading Ukraine is most certainly one of Putin's goals, not the primary goal.

[allegorical oracle]

14. Putin wants to reconstruct the old USSR. Trump has been on Putin's radar for years and he prolly

couldn't believe his luck when DJT was elected. The Moscow/St. Petersburg files on DJT likely go back years.