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Notes -
Wait, when the mongers, whoever they are, argued for the draft in relation to Afghanistan/Iraq/Syria? I thought the argument was we should support local allies on the ground and given them weapons, etc. instead of dumping everything and running like we're competing in 400m sprint? What this has to do with the draft?
Not sure what this means in regards to Putin - what rules have been changed lately and how?
What are you talking about? I've never heard of Putin knocking out any third-party infrastructure, and as most of the aid to Ukraine comes through Poland, I'm sure Poland would be screaming Article 5 very loudly if Putin tried to knock out anything there.
I'm not sure what "credibility" you are talking about - Putin and his surrogates repeatedly claimed there's no war, there's just a little special military operation which would end very soon with total victory, and no draft is going to be necessary, not now, not ever. And there's no need for draft anyway because there are almost no losses. Now there's a draft (and it's called "limited" but on the ground it's "grab everybody who remotely looks like capable of holding a rifle"), and with numbers from 300 thousands to potentially a million - which is a humongous number. This is completely contrary to every claim that has been made about the war by Putin and his surrogates for months. What "credibility"?
In Russia, there's not even much of such thing as "credibility" - everybody knows the government lies all the time. I mean: All. The. Time. They're actually ok with it - as long as there's at least some benefit from it - e.g. if the lie served the cause of the Greatness of Russia, then they live in the Great Russia of which everybody is afraid, and thus they're ok with the government lying.
He's not "proving a point". And "international community" is not his main target audience, either. He started a war, with the promise of easy win. There's no win. Now he can either admit he lost - and in Russian culture, there's no way of honorably losing a fight, there's no such concept. Or throw more and more resources into it to hope maybe somewhere there would be some situation that somehow may be presented as a win. Except it's kinda hard when Ukrainians are kicking their asses day to day. The only thing he needs from the "international community" is to falter in their support for Ukraine, so that such "win" situation may present itself - e.g. pressure Zelensky to negotiate without conclusive military victory and surrender the occupied territories. It's not a question of "credibility" as in some gentleman's debate - it's a question of survival for his power structure (and his own person, of course, but it's not only about him personally). If he's not getting a win - he's a loser, and a loser can't be a Tzar. It's not a question of any "credibility", it's a question of claiming the power but not actually having the power - that's something you can't do in Russia.
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