Vlad Wisdom

 

I leave town for a couple of days far from anything higher-tech than a wristwatch, and the Putinophile Usual Suspects wet themselves with glee when he rockets multiple cities far from the front lines. Exactly like he's been doing to Ukrainians since February. >yawn<

1) Cities don't move very fast, so this wasn't a particularly impressive technical feat.

2) People who you've been shelling for seven months aren't liable to lose heart when you do it yet again.

3) Interested third parties aren't inclined to take you more seriously when you bomb cities instead of armies.

4) Both of them have, in fact, tripled down on their resolve, and their aid guarantees, and the phrase "war crimes" moves from whispers to bullhorns.

5) When your armies, plural, are getting their asses handed to them on a platter for over a month straight, you might want to think about shelling those military formations that vex you. If you could find them and target them correctly. Everybody also notices when you can't do that: their army, your own army, and the armies of friendly and unfriendly nations now know you can't hit Jack or Shit, unless Jack's a third-grader on the swings in the playground.

6) When all you have is a tack hammer, even your problems that really are nails give you trouble.

7) Vlad has now announced it's open season in return on actual Russians in actual Russia. That rarely ends well. Ask Zombie Herman Goering.

All Vlad has accomplished is to look like a bigger and more murderous @$$hole, with a weaker and less-competent military than before. The only things helping him now are that his supply lines are 100 miles closer to Russian territory than they were in August, and he's got 60,000 less troops to supply than he started out with in February.

And with time, as things develop, he may not have to worry about supplying his forces in Crimea any more at all. As the king said in The Princess Bride, "Won't that be nice?"

Well-played. It's like Christmas in October.