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We really don’t care, Mr. Putin
Putin’s elaborate mistrust of Western intentions toward Russia are overblown by a long shot.
Could we perhaps have a word Mr. Putin? I am not quite sure why it falls to me to say this, certainly others who are more well positioned in international affairs could more easily address this issue. But they haven’t. They’ve had oodles of time, years in fact, to drop a few hints, and in fairness there is a trail of breadcrumbs that add up to a startling fact that you might have missed.
We don’t care about you and your country. That’s all.
Oh sure, we care that you have prodigious quantities of hydrocarbons which experts say we should try leaving in the ground. But yes, you are a major energy producer, and you seem to be cozying up to OPEC in an effort to control the world’s access to cheap-ish petroleum. My guess is you aim to corner the market for hydrocarbons in what’s increasingly looking like a race against time.
Side bar, doing so would require a highly capable military. As Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently observed, you were reputed to have the second greatest military in the world but now you seem only to have the second-best military in Ukraine.
Will you sell the last drop of black gold that makes the planet completely inhospitable? Or will the West manage to scrape together…