The attempt to isolate Putin from the world club has failed. With oil prices collapsing, Putin must sure up domestic support and now needs a victory. He can easily blame the economic decline at home on the West’s sanctions. That was handed to him on a gold platter. Had the West not tried to sanction Putin, then he would have faced domestic pressure as the economy turned down hard. But no, the idiots in Washington had to play hard ball when it was not called for.
The risk that Eastern Ukraine will now fall to Russia is rising exponentially. The West is broke and even Merkel has to prepare for some sort of deal with the partitioning of Ukraine. If not, she faces the collapse of the entire country and more money lent goes into default. So much for the IMF promising loans only if Ukraine confronted Russia. What gave the IMF such political power one can only guess given Lagarde’s close ties with Obama.
In eastern Ukraine, the evacuation of the embattled town Debaltseve is underway.Convoys of buses of the city in the east of the country have begun. Our sources in the East have had to flee to the West. Government forces and rebels on site seemed to have agreed on a truce to allow civilians to be brought to safety.
From the outset, I warned that Ukraine should be just split and allow everyone to move freely to where they wanted to live. But no, we always have to fight the inevitable. This is all part of the war cycle and whatever Obama could have done wrong, he has done perfectly in line with our models.
