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Here's mud in your eye!

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Ukrainians toasted Putin on his 70th birthday celebration by taking the town of Lyman in the Donetsk province, which he had declared "Russia's forever."  It seems Ukraine is not respecting Russia's new national borders.

The celebration was a joke.  Not just because of the many false declarations but that one country can unilaterally declare parts of another country theirs forever.  Putin looked high as he went off on a lengthy rant against Ukraine and the West with the four puppet leaders of these recently annexed provinces standing behind him.  They all joined hands in the end, letting out a big cheer as if the deal was done and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

Putin is now left with a nasty hangover, as friends and foes railed against him on the Russian chat site Telegram, including the thug he installed in Chechnya after reclaiming the Russian province in the early 2000s.  Kadyrov wryly noted "everything would be good if it wasn't so bad."

The whole point of this celebration was to convey to the Russian people that the Kremlin had things well in hand in Ukraine and that people could return to life as normal.  This while 100s of 1000s of Russians, mostly service-age men, were fleeing to the borders in every direction, even coming across the narrow passage into Norway after Finland closed its border. 

This mobilization effort has brought out the ugly nature of local officials, calling up men mostly because of personal grudges, not those with previous military experience.  In Kaliningrad, many of the men being called up have a Lithuanian background, and similarly Russian officials in the disputed provinces are calling up men of Ukrainian background.  This has led to widespread chaos as many of these men are over 40, when the first round of "privates" was supposed to be no older than 35.  Personally, I don't see how this will do much good as manpower is not the problem.  Lack of food, clothing and munitions is the problem, as it has resulted in poor morale along the front line.  What good is it to add 300,000 more "privates" to the mix other than to use them as cannon fodder?

These aren't cold, hard calculations, but the emotional response of a man at the end of his rope.  The only question now is how long will it take to hang himself.  He seems perfectly willing to repeat the same mistakes that led to the dissolution of his beloved Soviet Union.

He gains some succor in seeing Europe also unraveling.  Recent elections in Sweden and Italy saw far-right coalitions gain control of the parliaments.  How this will affect the unity of the EU in response to Putin remains to be seen.  However, Sweden and Italy had not been major contributors to the war effort before these elections, so their lack of engagement will largely go unnoticed.

The bigger question is who set off the explosions in the Baltic Sea that damaged parts of the Nord Stream pipeline? Of course, Putin denies Russia had any hand in it, but evidence points to their submarine fleet based out of Kaliningrad.  Plus, Putin is on record saying he wants to freeze Europe this winter.  Norway worries that its gas pipeline to Europe may similarly be targeted, as it is currently helping to make up for the shortfall in supply.

Putin seems perfectly willing to drag all all of Europe into this war as if to say I told you so to the Russian people.  This is what you get when a doddering fool turns 70.

 

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