In 1970 Ozzy Osborne said:
Generals gathered in their masses,just like witches at black masses.Evil minds that plot destruction,sorcerers of death's construction.In the fields the bodies burning,as the war machine keeps turning.Death and hatred to mankind,poisoning their brainwashed minds.Oh lord, yeah!
From DefenseOne, January 11, 2021:
If Putin is not deterred from seizing another chunk of sovereign territory, he won’t stop there.
President Vladimir Putin is more likely than not to invade Ukraine again in the coming weeks. As someone who helped President Barack Obama manage the U.S. and international response to Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014, and our effort to keep Moscow from occupying the whole country into 2015, I am distressingly convinced of it.
Why? I see the scale and type of force arrayed by the Russian military, the ultimatums issued by Putin and his officials, the warlike rhetoric that has until recently saturated Russian airwaves, and the impatience with talks expressed by his foreign minister. Add to that the likely anxiety produced in Putin by the demonstrations last week in Kazakhstan—and Moscow’s success in tamping them down.
But the basic reason I think talks with Russia will fail is that the United States and its allies have nothing they can immediately offer Moscow in exchange for a de-escalation.
The United States must do more than issue ultimatums about sanctions and economic penalties. U.S. leaders should be marshalling an international coalition of the willing, readying military forces to deter Putin and, if necessary, prepare for war.
If Russia prevails again, we will remain stuck in a crisis not just over Ukraine but about the future of the global order far beyond that country’s borders. Left unrestrained, Putin will move swiftly, grab some land, consolidate his gains, and set his sights on the next satellite state in his long game to restore all the pre-1991 borders: the sphere of geographical influence he deems was unjustly stripped from Great Russia.....
....MUCH MORE
Farkas was deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia at the time of the 2014 U.S. backed coup in Ukraine, serving President Obama from 2012 through 2015.
In the Opinion piece above Farkas continues:
....The horrible possibility exists that Americans, with our European allies, must use our military to roll back Russians—even at risk of direct combat. But if we don’t now, Putin will force us to fight another day, likely to defend our Baltic or other Eastern European allies....
but does not mention that the Baltic countries as well as the four frontline nations that border Ukraine are all members of NATO with its Article 5 mutual self-defense clause which makes them such an immensely different case that her conflation of them with Ukraine is straight-up deception.
Additionally, just on a tactical level, should Russia invade eastern Ukraine, every mile the tanks roll past the Donbas region, the Russian-speaking states of Donetsk and Luhansk:
(ABC.au)
the more popular resistance, backed by the western powers, the Russians will face. Putin knows this.
