I feel like anyone who is trying to say that Putin cares about this is fooling themselves. It’s quite obvious that what Putin says in the media is a carefully crafted narrative designed get people to miss the point entirely. He invaded Ukraine because his country is failing. Population growth and economic growth is stagnating. Quality of life is downright bad. He needs oil and natural resource revenue to maintain Russia’s appearance of strength and eventually hopefully find a way of recovering.

When he started the war, he made a lot of assumptions based on the assurances of grifting yes men. He assumed his army, the legendary Russian army, would cruise to victory like America in Iraq. Heck if he managed to seize control, we’d probably be treating Ukraine more like Crimea at this point. Just another chunk of “illegally” seized territory but getting a heavily armed Nuclear power to give the land back… well it wouldn’t be an option. Just a bunch of sanctions and a decade or two of grumbling until the west finally gave up on the issue and moved on. But he didn’t win, and instead found out he lost a war he couldn’t lose. He gambled and lost big time.

So what does he want to accomplish now? You have to ask yourself, what would be the way forward for Russia? To give up on Ukraine and become the laughing stock of Europe and every former Soviet Republic? With crippling sanctions and the drum beat of war reparations grinding his country down to nothing? Or to keep fighting to keep that fear and doubt alive? I think really that’s his only hope.

The nice thing about a “limited” number is that it can be limited to “one” card, “all” cards or anything in between.