Putin now stands to lose his power if the war stopped. Trump actually spoke to Russia with the summit and showed Russians that a future of prosperity and good relations was possible if this conflict was resolved. Trump and Ukraine, along with the Western powers also signaled that Ukraine will make territorial concessions to achieve this if it got a guarantee that Russia won’t attack it again. The West also assured Russia that Ukraine will not join NATO.

This was rejected by Putin’s regime. He rejected it because if he came home with the Eastern Donbass and Crimea (most of which he had in 2014) he’d be called to task for having lost a million men, thousands of tanks and vehicles, hundreds of aircraft, missiles, and other assets costing way over what the war could have brought in as revenues from the looting of occupied Ukraine and the seizing of its agricultural products.

In short, he came up short on his promises of making Ukraine part of Russia, removing the Kiev government (the “Nazis endangering Russia”) quickly and restore the Yanukovich cleptocracy on steroids plus and the fall back of NATO to 1990s lines. All these were promised to various factions in the Russian ruling circle. Everbody was to get a piece.

Instead, NATO expanded, Ukraine held on, the West didn’t abandon it, and Russia with the Russians is isolated, sanctioned, and forced into being an autarky, if not a Chinese client state by now.

The whole war was a failed piracy campaign against Ukraine at a time when the West appeared weak due to an invalid occupying the White House and Europe’s major powers being led by lightweights. It was a project concocted by the Kremlin, parts of the military leadership (as we saw the limited mobilization and deployment of mercenaries) and elements within the business community that rely on the state for function, to essentially loot Ukraine like the Mongols, the Soviets, and the Nazis looted countries they overran in the past. Empty its banks, its gold reserves, steal its technology and energy assets, and its agricultural products.

Basically plundering the country like a bunch of pirates and gangsters, splitting the loot after a quick end, while claiming stories about Nazis and British spies, Zionist plotters, and secret bases threatening Russia. That may have fooled the demoralized and abused Russian masses but not the Western educated and billionaire oligarchs and other elites who aren’t retarded or isolated from the rest of the world like the toilet missing peasantry and poor mujiks sent to the front as meat to out mass bullets.

They see what is going on and what caused their problems. The question is now how long will they play along with the regime. A regime that does demand loyalty at the price of balcony incidents, sudden heart attacks (after tea) and boating accidents a la Robert Maxwell. We know of 50 oligarchs and business leaders being offed by the regime since the war begun, there are generals who went missing, and a mercenary chief exploding in the sky after he tried to renegotiate his share of the loot with the pirate captain.

Russia closed its borders to Russians to exit, especially fighting age and able men who are now awaiting conscription into a fight where the enemy is increasingly becoming so advanced that it is replacing humans with robots basically solving the demographic imbalance between the two countries. Ukraine has been clever enough to assure Western support by developing advanced weapons and communications technology that if falling into the hands of the Russians or Chinese could majorly impact the fighting power of the USA and the West. Or even if those toys end up in the hands of Turkey and its Ottoman nostalgic sultan wannabe.

Defending Ukraine is now a domestic challenge. Putin has to realize this or lose the bigger game….