Ukrainian troops met with joy in Kherson as Russia abandons its biggest prize

Do you mean the clever ploy of approaching Kiev with a 40 mile long column and then running away? Or the clever ploy of disabling the NS1 and NS2 pipelines to force German and European public to finally support some hard decisions of breaking the addictive infusion of cheap Russian gas? Oh, wait, that wasn’t a Russian clever ploy…

I don’t mean to alarm anyone, but I think history and StarCraft teach us that an enemy seeming to collapse often turns out to have been a ploy to draw forces forward so they’re over-extended and exposed.

So far in the conflict Putin has never gone this long without a clever ploy. So what’s his current initiative? The fact that it’s hidden is not a good sign.