Quote Originally Posted by carl View Post
Yea you're right the Kremlin masters are probably thinking that. They probably thought the same thing about Western support for pesky Polish shipyard workers in the old days.
And that's the point. The morality of it is irrelevant. As you said, "results matter". And the result thus far has been continued Russian success, Ukrainian instability, and Western posturing. I don't think Moscow wants escalation any more than Washington does, insofar that escalation increases the chances of a decision point between credibility and costly intervention. The low-level agitation works in Moscow's favor and it'll be interesting to see how it shapes the elections - assuming they're going to be held. What we should be doing is attempting to mitigate any further losses rather than reversing Russia's gains.