I took this picture from a Tweet that doesn't exist anymore (no idea why) but Adam Postans made some British humour posting it by saying "since here in BBC we have to stay neutral in the Ukrainian issue I post a picture with flowers under the blue sky". Nice one - an achievement he managed to find space for humour in the gloom of war.
At the point where Putin flirts with a new Chernobyl I can't find space for humour at any stretch of my Greek (or not so Greek) humour or imagination. Is there any light at the end of this tunnel?
Let's see:
Various sources including the Times report failed attempts of assassinating the Ukrainian President. At first I read about 2 teams from Chechnya, now Times count 3 attempts in total. If it is true as they say that some Russian FSB guys have handed critical information about them early enough to Ukrainians because they are more sane than Putin (or want to save their asses for the post Putin era) then it means that the first cracks in Putin's power are already here.
The above give a first idea about how the next days might be like:
Support to Ukrainians to stand their ground as long as possible (70 aircrafts are on delivery - impressive number) in order to allow either the push of oligarchs or a military coup to make its magic as both will be pushed to do so by the applied sanctions. Military high ranked officers have a plus reason to do so under the threat of facing an international court post Putin.
That's just my rough guesses/estimates - I am not gonna play the military analyst, you can find more than you can consume in various channels and sites, both wannabe and serious ones. However, I am not paid by anyone to express my positions neither I owe to any country or political party like most of these people do so at least you know that what I write is the most unbiased positions possible.
Sanctions of US and Europe also take their toll on the Russian society of course and in theory the people of Russia could make the change as well. This would be the best case scenario as this change could be more promising democracy wise but this scenario has a couple of serious problems:
A) Try to recall when it was the last time the Russian society managed a revolution pro democracy...yep...We don't have enough time to wait.
B) The Russian society is really divided today as the younger ones tend to hate this situation while the older ones are much more tolerant about what's going on since they are also less informed or informed exclusively by the regime. The following video says a lot about this:
(You can read my post on that matter here)
Of course, in the chaos we will see sometime soon in Russia there might be a mixture of all the above (coup, oligarchs and protests). In any case, regardless he way I think Putin's days are more numbered than ever. He will soon face the outcome of the fact that probably there's already a race under his nose for who's gonna take the power first after him. It's just that he's taken his nose far away from reality long ago (now he's rumoured to be at a bunker in Ural mountains) and he is also rumoured to interact only with a very small number of people, always at a distance as he's afraid of proximity. The latter made this video from President Zelensky even more interesting:
Wondered what's all that funny case with Putin and proximity with others resulting in those hilarious meetings at extra long tables? Rumours say he's on steroids and these have weakened his immune system therefore he tries to avoid all possible risks of getting sick. He didn't manage to avoid being sick in the head though.