By Mark Trevelyan
London - In a show of strength two months into its assault on Ukraine, Russia test (click here) launched a new nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile which President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday would make Moscow's enemies stop and think.
Putin was shown on TV being told by the military that the long-awaited Sarmat missile had been test-launched for the first time from Plesetsk in northwest Russia and hit targets in the Kamchatka peninsula, nearly 6,000 km (3,700 miles) away.
The test of the Sarmat, under development for years, did not surprise the West, but came at a moment of extreme geopolitical tension. Russia has yet to capture any major cities since it sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24.....
In talks of Ukraine, Russia is not coming to grips with reality. Putin is counting on bullying his way through this and it is not well received.
Putin needs to stop the killing which includes the bombing and allow the Ukrainians to return. They will not view him as their leader since he killed so many of them. Putin has to make the effort, otherwise, the outcomes to this is very poor.
There are too many people dead. There is no stepping away from that.
Putin is still looking for appeasement without realizing he has moved far beyond that possibility. His politics demands global resignation to his power. He will not be able to bridge that gap of reality with propaganda. The launch of a missile is supposed to bring the world to his feet in awe of his power. That is what that is about. Xi Zinping knew this was going to happen and evidently consented to it to force the issue of surrender.
The communists are vastly miscalculating.
Nuclear brinkmanship was always a dialogue without credibility. This genocide has turned the communists into a danger on Earth. They are capable of disregarding all that is peaceful. Their values are not at all what The West has expected of them. They have little to no value of life. Power is their's to use as they see fit without overrating the enormously tragic outcomes. They are not calculating their moves in meaningful ways to even engage in peace talks. The dialogues have words but no meaning except to bide time and propagandize legitmacy of hate to the Russian people.
Putin has an achilles heel with the people of Russia and he is trying in every way to hide it and make excuses for all that has transpired. That is not a leader seeking peace. That is further aggression against his own people. There is a reason Navalny had a hearing before the invasion and that was to make opposition feeble in appearance.
They are really miscalculating and these are the leaders of these countries. There is no place for them to blame a misunderstanding. There is no safe place for them. They are fully invested in their propaganda and wrongly so.
It is one thing to be Goliath with arrogance of victory by the sheer appearance of strenght and it is another thing to be Goliath and approach a fight with the possibility of losing. The communists have got this wrong and they can't see the forest for the trees. That is impossibly dangerous.
The West demands peace. Appeasement has always been overrated when it comes to communists. Appeasement is not a weakness, it is a measured policy to peace. The communists have got this completely wrong.
