In response to your entire post, I disagree with almost everything. I find it interesting to read your detailed opinion, though, and will look back at it at times to see how it stood the test of time, so thanks for that. I think Putin will not win this war, and over time people who supported him now will shift their opinion of him. To call someone like Putin “the only statesman” reads like fiction to me. This entire war green lit by a deranged old man surrounded by sycophants who supplied him with bad intel will be studied for decades in how to absolutely not wage war. It will be stamped as a hallmark of hubris, incompetence, corruption, mismanagement, myopia, narcissism, tribalism, cognitive dissonance, brainwashing and cognitive decline.
You say you don't want decadence, but support someone who is reportedly one of the richest people on the planet through pillaging the state, flying a plane with a toilet made of gold, and vacationing on a $100 million mega yacht, effecting power through literal oligarchs. Time will lay all of it bare.
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