Ukraine

Putin is running out of options.

It's possible he ordered that stupid missile attack simply to placate his hardline pundits.

It's just as possible he did it to demonstrate how wrong those pundits are, and that he's the only one anybody should be listening to.

BTW, there's somewhere between 37 and a kajillion different scenarios/options, and ain't none of 'em good for anybody, including Vladimir Putin.

Anyway, Putin has to find a way to give himself an escape pod without looking like he's backing down and abandoning what he told everybody was a must-do thing. So he launches this stupid attack to quiet the criticism, but it does practically nothing to bolster his image.

It does deflects attention from his failures, which buys him time to throw a whole bunch more shit in the air so maybe the citizenry forgets about the problems for a minute.

It also gives him the out he needs because he can blame the whole thing on people who dare challenge him. He can throw up his hands, blame "political interference", clean house, and go back to being a general pain in the ass instead of a world-threatening menace - which gives him a chance to flip the whole thing over and proclaim himself the Great Problem-Solver who ended the war.

🤪

Ben Hodges breaks it all down.