Richard Engel: Top Military Official on Ukraine: "Putin probing...thinks POTUS is distracted..."

[kpete]

Richard Engel

From a top former military official I know on Ukraine. Sobering. “Definitely Putin probing. He thinks POTUS is pretty distracted and between holidays and Mueller, might be a good time for a further land grab. This could get VERY ugly.”

Link to tweet

[msongs]

1. one might think that body of water is an international waterway continuation of black sea

[EndGOPPropaganda]

2. Similar to Nixon during the Yom Kippur War.

Except during the Yom Kippur War the Soviets didn't realize how distracted Nixon was with Watergate.

[triron]

3. Fuck that; Trump isn't "distracted"! Putin is his boss.

Fuck MSNBC.

[shanny]

4. best way (only way) is to paint rump as weak and stupid

and getting rolled

not saying it would work, given financial incentives not to, but only possible way to get him to stick up for OUR ALLIES, morality or anything decent

[grantcart]

5. This could be what was discussed in Helsinki when no one was around

When the Mueller probe starts to erupt, start a conflict.

[ooky]

6. Trump is the last thing that concerns Putin.

Trump is quie obviously a Putin puppet. More likely Putin is probing Congress in hopes they will remain as feckless about this as everything else they've let Trump get away with. I see Putin waited for our election to be over before he made his latest move on Ukraine.

[roamer65]

7. Putin wants the entire eastern half of Ukraine, east of the Dnepr.

If he gets the chance he will march into Kiev and force them to cede it. Then he will set up a vassal state in the western half.