1 April 2022
As to Russia's goals.
Looking at a map, the trouble for Russia geographically, is that its western border opens smoothly onto the plains of Eastern Europe and there are those gateways that give access to invaders.
So a Russian leader would like to plug the gaps with neutral buffer states, all the way from from Estonia to Bulgaria included.
That's the dream. Perhaps from the Baltics, or Finland even, down to Ukraine and Moldovia.
The minimum a Russian leader would want is what Biden referred to, in the first of his many gaffes, when he said it'd be ok a little bit in, can take the Donbas, that'd be OK. And I think everyone is agreed there's no giving back Crimea, that's gone for good.
(Reminds me of the bar girls here - "I only let them go little bit in and I don't let them stay for long".)
As to the means.
Whatever the press says to give us foolhardy confidence, Putin's army is massive and the opposition is Ukrainian. Aswhere, outside Ukraine, he'd be up against NATO, which is the Anglo-Saxons - that's clearly now an impossible dream.
So if I've got it right, he can realistically have Crimea and Eastern Ukraine / Basarabia: I think the two gateways in Moldovia are called that after the name of a former ruling family.
As to a strategy for getting that little lot.
He knows by now that America will concede nothing, never, while they have a breath left in them. All empires fight to the death (except UK).
Why not hold peace talks for tactical reasons, but meanwhile continue the groznyization, as this will accelerate the exodus of the local people. The Ukrainians hate Putin by now, ethnic Russians or not. Remember, just before invading he moved out half a million ex-pat Russians back to Russia.
So he could flatten the country and empty it of people. That would definitely stop the war as there'd be noone left to fight, nor object to his occupation, no population to subdue, no problem holding what he's taken.
("I no give change. You can pay my taxi?".)
Then he could shunt back enough Russians, and maybe from Belarus too, to rebuild and replant.
Like that, he would have rubbed out the border on the map and little Russia would have rejoined its big brother.
As to risks.
So the only flies in the ointment are that this relies on the Russian army being strong enough to scare the shit out of the people and kill those who won't run away.
Also, looking at the demographic table, Russia doesnt really have the youth to work the Russian economy, let alone shift millions to Ukraine. Hence Belarus, but it's probably got the same problem.
...maybe from China? It's demographics are worse.
4 June 2022
Germany is rearming like the Nazis, says Putin. The story goes back further than this, according to George Friedman.
https://youtu.be/r-8KV_GurLY
Remember that prior to Bismarck, Germany was just a collection of many little different states, so while from 1492 onwards, Britain, the Netherlands, France and Spain had their empires, with whom to trade and grow rich; Germany had nothing.
The Germans unite together very well, they work together very well, they are super efficient and also from looking at the historic record you can see that they are a very aggressive people.
Germany has an industrial base that produces twice what it needs but unlike the other European powers it had no Empire to export to. This is why Germany abandoned the deutschmark for the euro : because it could set the exchange rate and thus found an export home for its surplus production ... at the expense most of these so-called Club Med countries who, by their Catholic or Latin culture, could not keep up.
500 years of war in Europe. Europe was a slaughterhouse that lost 20% of its population. But still, overall Europe is more populous and wealthier than the United States od America.
America created all those institutions after the last war, including the EU and the Marshall plan, and as a sea power it made safe the world's sea lanes for trade. It did all this in order to stop the slaughter in the birthplace of culture, and have a stable block with whom to trade, and to nobble any would-be European hegemon that might form alliances and come back and challenge it.
But it meant that Europe lost much of its sovereignty and the world was dominated by the two powers, America and Russia.
Then in 1992 the Soviet Union collapsed and in that same year, Europe united under the Maastricht Treaty. One of those American institutions, NATO, should have gone out of business at this point, but Europe had disbanded its militaries to a large extent, so NATO remained and began kicking Russia while it was down, rolling in all those newly-independent states along the Russo-central-European fault line. Why? Because it could, as America now had no challenger to check its behaviour.
And this is what led to the present war : as in the past, as soon as Russia regained its strength, it responded to the beating.
So in conclusion, I think it's true to say that while this war is completely unnecessary, but America is never in a mood to listen, if America loses and has to withdraw from Europe, then yes, German re-armament could be a big problem. America will not be there to bully Germany into considerate behaviour for its neighbours, and there is a real risk that if the southern debtor nations stop repaying their debt, they will have problems with Germany, in the same way Sri Lanka currently has problems with China and we could see sovereignty, and the power to make war or peace, flow to a newly militarised Germany.