Doesn’t anyone understand that that Putin-person (who, ironically, looks so much like an Egyptian Sphinx kitty!) is playing his usual games with the USA and European Union because he is angry that the Ukranians want their independence from Russia, with a sane and honest leader, and that the Arab Spring exacerbated others’ desires to free themselves from unjust and tyrannical leaders who exploit their own people and need to have their chains jerked? And that the response from the USA and the EU is not going to make Putin very happy, especially because those countries have given him no way out, no way to save face!! !
Yes, he is wrong to govern with an iron fist, using the army to intimidate, and yes, he is still living in the last century and would be very pleased with another cold war and wants only to keep his people under his inflexible jurisdiction without having to meet any of their needs for democracy or a voice in government or a thriving ecomomy for all instead of a small number of elite oligarchs.
But he has no way to SAVE FACE. Why don’t political leaders SEE that this is the one strategy that is a first step toward negotiations with disruptive leaders like Putin. A man like Putin will never back down in an altercation without being able to extract acknowledgment from his adversaries that he is a powerful and effective leader in some ways, even if he is on the wrong path for some of the people he governs.
I’m actually getting a bit tired of all this Putin stuff, but I feel for the Ukrainians and hope they find a way out of this mess.
Mama and papa and I just watched “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” and fankly, I’m not sure Russia shouldn’t be governed by a sheik like the one in the movie. But I’m pretty sure a sheik would NOT like the winters…
Loulou, you are one very smart kitty. Funny too. Putin does look like a Russian hairless.
I screwed up….That kitty is a Sphinx and I really blue it…haha. Get it, ‘blue’? Anyway, there is a site of pics of Putin and cats that is HILARIOUS.