Putin isn't strong in this case ... people misunderstand something -- under Putin Russia has lost Ukraine and mismanaged the situation massively.
The puppet president they tried to put in Ukraine was run out of the country and with no other options left they were forced to seize a small chunk of the country, but the end result is they have probably lost Ukraine to NATO/EU influence for good.
This is a collosal disaster for Russia, lets not make any bones about it.
It would be like the US losing California to Mexico or something, lol, but invading a small portion of Northern California in retaliation.
Putin f*cked this whole situation up. That's not strength. They invaded Crimea out of desperation. Soon Russia will be encircled by NATO with no buffer zone from Ukraine or Moldova.
Putin is also monumentally stupid for revving up the Cold War rhetoric, because if there's something both political parties in the US can rally around it's that Russian aggression needs to be dealt with. So now America is going to be given the greenlight by both parties with public support to spend tons of money helping Ukraine and so will other members of the EU.
Whereas if they had kept this situation under control, there wouldn't be popular support for aiding Ukraine, but now everyone is going to come and help Ukraine pay down their debts and offer all types of trade/energy deals.
