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Have to wonder what the end goal is here. Putin is human, but he’s also pretty calculating in his actions. People have mentioned before China’s competing syste
by bladegash 5y ago
Have to wonder what the end goal is here. Putin is human, but he’s also pretty calculating in his actions.
People have mentioned before China’s competing system to SWIFT and this move potentially being to their benefit. You also have the EU and US spinning up their wheels against a boogeyman, which in some ways, has the effect of strengthening and/or testing their relationships.
In other ways, it forces the West into really tough and expensive policy positions, with plenty of opportunity to damage relationships as well.
Perhaps it really is just as simple as they wanted to prevent Ukraine from joining the EU/NATO. Maybe it’s a mixture of all the above.
Blinken mentioned it - and I agree - that I don’t see whatever plan that’s currently underway as intentioned to stop at Ukraine.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> have to wonder what the end goal is here Convince the oligarchs they're richer with Putin dead than alive.
- azeirah 5y agoI think bladegash was talking about what Putin's goal was.
- kthejoker2 5y agoConvince the oligarchs they're richer with Ukraine out of NATO than in it, because gas?
- lomereiter 5y agoMy wild guess is that Putin's goal has always been cleansing the power circles of the oligarchs who got there in the 1990s, and now that he's running out of time as he's getting old, he needs help in that from the West. Now he might be betting that the sanctions will mostly target these oligarchs and make the country _really_ unattractive for them, whereas an average Russian anyway has no assets abroad and doesn't travel much, and therefore won't notice the difference, as energy and food are abundant domestically. If that's his plan, there should be no need to go beyond Ukraine.
- digianarchist 5y agoPutin has been preparing to be cut off from SWIFT since it was first touted in 2014. That was the time to do something unexpected. Now it’s already been accounted for.