Quote Originally Posted by andy6025 View Post
While i don’t think Russians are happy that Finland joined NATO, they consider Ukraine to eclipse it by far in terms of core geo strategic interests. And thus far they have prevented it from joining NATO.

Of course, from the Russian point of view they probably perceive that there’s been a slurry of side benefits to the invasion - some that might have been unpredictable, at least in their magnitude. For example, the extent to which the Europeans, and the Germans and uk in particular, have wrecked their own economies in response. I have little doubt that the Kremlin smells like cigars over that one.

But Europe seems quite content with the way things are going, so full steam ahead. And now that Finland is in the club (I hear that even Finnish children can kill 10 Russians with their bare hands) it’s all but a nail in the coffin to Putin’s imperialist plans.
I think you are giving Putin far too much credit for our economic demise, we have done that all by ourselves, but it suits the government to blame Putin as it stops them from having to address the effects of Brexit and their own mismanagement. Our slide had started way before the war in Ukraine, and even before the pandemic (another big cause of our woes). So, much as you would like to toast Putin's genius, I think you are wrong about this.