The

 

Russian Finance minister when asked about the "Unprecedented sanctions" the west will impose when they invade Ukraine said something to the effect of: "We understand there will be hardships, we believe we are prepared to endure them."

The West is all, "Wait a second here we need to negotiate."

One side has already done their calculus and is prepared to endure, the other side is saying wait a minute we need to negotiate.

There is no more negotiations that will be done. You don't build field hospitals, send in shipments of blood and put pontoon bridges across rivers so that you can "negotiate".

Matter of time.

General Patton had it right (and Im not gonna go to his extreme, you can look up the quote) but Russians do not think like Europeans, this is the West biggest mistake in dealing with them. They are much more cunning, extremely more so. I'll put it to you this way, it's my belief that Putin probably only participated in the G8 so that he could figure out ways to avoid it sanctions some 20+ years later. He has outwitted and confounded four sitting US presidents ("W", Obama, Trump and Biden, 2 Dems 2 rep BTW).

I love you baby.