What next in Ukraine?
A week ago I expected that Russia would recognise the independence of the pro-Russian regions of Ukraine, and that way send troops into the regions as peace keepers to dodge accusations of an invasion, and keep the evident threat of a full-scale invasion in their sleeve. But as we know, they pretty much went for the full-scale invasion approach. Russians don't like to be told what to do or not, but still surprising that they went for this approach right away.
Now the operation seems poorly calculated. Maybe they thought that they could take the capital Taliban-like with little resistance, and the troops seem poorly equipped and organised. When there is a bad atmosphere for presenting less than optimistic views for the leadership, this is plausible. Also, I wonder about the morale of the soldiers, who are likely too young to get impressed by Putin's history lessons. I fear that the miscalculation will make Russia to bring heavier weapons into the game. That will become ugly.
This is much a war over eastern vs western influence. Russia has seen the the political and military influence of Europe and the US creeping towards and into their domain, but, ironically, Russia's actions to prevent Ukraine into falling into the West only seem to speed up the process with more and more Ukrainians becoming positive about NATO and the EU. It was not so much so a decade ago, I think. And less willingness in the West to accept Ukraine. Now the sympathy favours Ukraine, despite the country's internal problems and political mess.
Russia is facing massive sanctions from the West. I don't think this will impress the Russian leadership much. Again, Russians don't like to be told what to do. More subtle ways would be better. Also, the sanctions will hit Russian citizens randomly who have nothing to do with this conflict.