The problem for the world is that Putin's cronies all stand to benefit mightily from any sanctions, because sanctions will simply make the firms they control even more powerful. None of the siloviki surrounding Putin cares a shit about ordinary Russians but they very much do care about abstracting as much wealth as they can into their own pockets. With $620 billion in foreign reserves, Russia's mafiosi (Putin's closest allies) can keep going for a very long time. And let's face it, Western sanctions will never be anything more than a sad little joke because no one really has the will to make them work.

Putin, like Hitler before him, understands how to take advantage of people's weaknesses. Western politicians are highly adept at arguing for hours over a single word in a treaty so as to paper over differences and gull the public into a belief that their "leaders" are "fighting their corner" as they indulge in rich all-night banquets that are supposedly high-level summits. And so Putin knows the West will do precisely nothing but make empty threats and give empty speeches as he rolls his tanks into Ukraine. Senile Biden lacks the political ability to commit the USA to anything, never mind defense of a non-NATO member because the neofascist Republican Party will oppose him regardless of the course of action he takes. Fatuous Johnson in the UK is delighted to have war in Ukraine to divert public attention from his infantile antics. Germany is in Russia's pocket and has been for nearly three decades. France is, well... France.

And so Ukraine's future is already clear. The only unknown is how many thousands will die to appease Putin's relentless bitter lust for revenge upon a world he completely fails to understand in any meaningful way.