It's like a nightmare, isn't it? Who would have thought six months ago that Russia would be massing troops on another country's border for an invasion? Has Putin lost his mind? Not a question for effect; Merkel didn't think he was all there in a conversation early in this crisis. Has something happened to him, psychologically, emotionally? Why is he so "embittered," the New York Times' word, against the U.S. and Europe? Why so suddenly? Putin made this decision without the input of Lavrov and the Foreign Ministry, made it with the advice of a clique of old KGB pals. That's unusual, nyet?
This thing floored the West, the world. Nobody saw it coming. It was not a failure of intelligence, not in the spy sense; maybe a failure in Putin's intelligence.
There is no going back from this. The West, the world, will never trust Putin or Russia again. Maybe this was the real Putin all along, the unreconstructed Soviet; you can take the boy out of the KGB but you can't take the KGB out of the boy.
I'll tell ya, this: as floored as the West was at the outset, as confused as it was, as confused as the West's responses were at the outset, just so, the West is united now. It's been a couple weeks; been a lotta talkin', been a lotta thinkin'. The Western leaders have had time to digest this now. Sanctions will hurt them all, but they see this too clearly now for "mere" economic pain to stand in the way of their inflicting pain on Putin and Russia. Russia will suffer for this.
It is a different world tonight than it was six months ago. There is no going back.
This thing floored the West, the world. Nobody saw it coming. It was not a failure of intelligence, not in the spy sense; maybe a failure in Putin's intelligence.
There is no going back from this. The West, the world, will never trust Putin or Russia again. Maybe this was the real Putin all along, the unreconstructed Soviet; you can take the boy out of the KGB but you can't take the KGB out of the boy.
I'll tell ya, this: as floored as the West was at the outset, as confused as it was, as confused as the West's responses were at the outset, just so, the West is united now. It's been a couple weeks; been a lotta talkin', been a lotta thinkin'. The Western leaders have had time to digest this now. Sanctions will hurt them all, but they see this too clearly now for "mere" economic pain to stand in the way of their inflicting pain on Putin and Russia. Russia will suffer for this.
It is a different world tonight than it was six months ago. There is no going back.
