Just to Sum Up.

So Russia gets nervous about NATO pushing into Ukraine. Fine. People should understand it, including Americans, who were ready to go to war over Cuban missile crisis.

Putin organizes a real diplomatic blitzkrieg. Lavrov and Putin meet dozens of western leaders in less than a month. Yet, all he gets is a middle finger.

Now the question. Was it worth it? What was the damn point? Just to stick it to him? Let’s think about it.

On the one hand we have war, deaths, stress, fear, anger. Anger in Russia, anger and fear in Ukraine, which would emerge from it half destroyed and scarred for a very long time. We have unprecedented economic warfare, that can easily send the whole world into recession. Just heard on NPR that US pension funds alone have lost 70 billion of their value due to their holdings in Russian companies.

And now what? Hysteria, paranoia, summary punishment, disruption and splitting of the world. World economy is on the brink, China is benefiting right and left. Cooperation everywhere — from climate to future pandemics — in shambles. And all this because Biden and Blinken enjoyed showing their middle finger to Putin? Or because they hoped to put Russia to heal? What an idiotic hope, when Russia gets ten times stronger in adversity. In the long run, the country that size and that rich in resources, natural and human, will only emerge stronger. Russia always needed a mobilizing project, and now it got one.

https://celiafarber.substack.com/p/words-from-a-russian-professor-of?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo0MTgxOTE1MiwicG9zdF9pZCI6NTAyMDE5MjcsIl8iOiI5UjdrUSIsImlhdCI6MTY0NzA5MDYyMSwiZXhwIjoxNjQ3MDk0MjIxLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjU3NzQyIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.11uPAoWnxU2BvYN-cxlELTB6VROcl7Xk1xHu6nkk6RM&s=r