My prediction: Putin will declare "Mission Accomplished" on May 9th and then retreat.

[calimary]

13. Yep. If it is not stopped, Ukraine will indeed be just the beginning.

Putin likely won’t be satisfied with only Ukraine. Especially when he’s already indicated he wants the whole thing - and then some.

I doubt it’s beyond the realm of possibility that he wants it ALL back under Russian control. He evidently wants to recreate the former Soviet Union - with its iron grip over all of what we used to regard as the “Iron Curtain countries” - the so-called “Soviet satellite countries” as I remember Romania, Bulgaria, and other nations edging the Russian border. Or what a guest on with Alex Witt (Robert Bell of the National Security Council) just called the “original Cold War lines of 1989.” From everything I’ve heard and read, that seems to be Putin’s objective: to mow through all those recently liberated newly-sovereign countries that used to be known as “Soviet satellite countries” and drag them back under Russian (ie: HIS) control.

I can’t help but fear that those nations better prepare - or NATO and the US - better prepare to put some actual muscle behind their words of warning. Moldova better arm up, cuz Putin undoubtedly wants THEIR turf, too. That’s the legacy he’s spending billions in Russian treasure and thousands of lives to build for himself in the history books. I suspect he even imagines himself being hailed as “Vlad the Great.”