Like a jilted suitor who kills the object of his desire, Russia is obliterating towns and villages in eastern Ukraine in order to supposedly remake them. From the pictures in the NYT and Wa Po, it looks more like total destruction with little thought as to what comes next. Besides, the medieval brutality of the Russian army is probably going to alienate even the Russian speakers in the area. Unless Putin intends to use Russians to repopulate the territory he has seized, he is creating a fifth column of Ukrainian nationalists who will resist any attempts at colonization.
Putin's seeming ultimatum is just the type of ham handed policy you would expect of an out of touch authoritarian. Ukraine has seen the same thing happen time and again over its long history, but especially during its inclusion in the USSR. Stalin caused the starvation of millions by forcibly collectivizing vast areas of the country. Those who didn't agree were either killed or deported to the Siberian gulag. It didn't work in the long run. Putin is in the process of learning an expensive lesson and the Russian people are paying for it.
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