Thoughts on Russia-Ukraine debacle

As a Yankee with virtually zero blood or familial ties to either country (or Europe for that matter, even though I'm Irish by blood), I don't have any dog in this fight and have largely tuned out of it because of that (whatever you do, stay out of 24/7 cable news if you want to protect your IQ points; trust me it's not worth it).

I will say a couple things about it though:

* Putin's gambit is backfiring on him badly; he's not getting a quick victory as he hoped. While it's pretty obvious Russia will win, barring a treaty or ceasefire, it will be a 100% Pyrrhic victory; Russian troop morale has been irreparably drained, billions of rubles have been wasted for land no one in Russia (except Zhirinovsky, who's as close to Russian Hitler as you can get) wanted, and their economy could be thrown back to the post-USSR 90's era where it was essentially a European Mexico, which nobody wants. Putin may have some weird vision for restoring the Russian Empire (and nothing else beyond that, crucially, which makes all the HItler/WWII comparisons fall flat), but most Russians I've seen just want what everyone else in the world wants: a secure life, and have long moved on from that weird nostalgia.

* I feel genuine pity for the Russian Army. While it's nice to see Ukraine fight back, the heavy losses Russian troops are dealing with now suggests this wasn't a war they were preparing for nor even wanted. I guarantee you about a quarter of those troops likely have relatives and/or friends living in Ukraine (millions of Russians reside in Ukraine, and vice versa). Can you imagine what they're thinking right now? Russia and Ukraine have a deep shared linguistic and cultural history, which explains why they've always viewed each other as a people very favorably; attempts by Russian ultranationalists to "other" Ukrainians like the Germans did with Poles and Czechs (both of whom shared little to no cultural history with Germany) have never worked out. In fact, Russian state media has kind of given up on smearing Ukrainians as "neo-Nazis" (while Ukraine does have an issue with them, to say they have control over someone like Zelensky, a Jewish comedian whose grandfather fought in the Red Army in WWII, is just comedic) and has made it all about Putin, trying to create a cult of personality towards him that Russians have never really cared about. That's working out well, either. They have to feel real bad having to kill the fellow Slavs they joined side-by-side together repelling the Nazis out of the USSR all those years ago.

That being said, I hope this whole thing ends soon. I imagine it will be sooner rather than later.