Bret Stephens: “Assume for a second that Putin by no means supposed to triumph over all of Ukraine: that, from the start, his actual objectives had been the power riches of Ukraine’s east, which include Europe’s second-largest identified reserves of herbal gasoline (after Norway’s).”
“Mix that with Russia’s earlier territorial seizures in Crimea (which has massive offshore power fields) and the japanese provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk (which include a part of a huge shale-gas box), in addition to Putin’s bid to keep watch over maximum or all of Ukraine’s sea coast, and the form of Putin’s ambitions change into transparent. He’s much less curious about reuniting the Russian-speaking global than he’s in securing Russia’s power dominance.”
Mentioned Canadian power professional David Knight Legg: “Underneath the guise of an invasion, Putin is executing a huge heist.”
“If this research is correct, then Putin doesn’t appear to be the miscalculating loser his critics make him out to be.”
