Originally Posted by
Lonewolf_50
I think that a further proliferation of "lit cigarettes dropping into flammable things at various infrastructure sites" is a more likely path forward.
I have a suspicion (yes, this is speculation) that some of those 'accidents' have had help in getting the holes in the cheese to line up.
I very much share your view. Assisting acts of sabotage within Russia, or giving support to the various anti-Putin partisan groups within the country, as long as it can be done with "plausible deniability" is both massively less risky for NATO, as well as being an awful lot less costly, both in terms of materiel and, perhaps more importantly, wasting a lot of time and effort in dealing with the media and political fallout of more direct assistance to Ukraine.
What we do not know, and it is very much for the best if it stays that way, is how strong the opposition is to Putin within Russia. We know that around a million Russians, mostly younger people, have left for places like Georgia and Uzbekistan. What we do not know, and it's probably best not to speculate about, is how many there are within Russia seeking to both stop the war with Ukraine and overthrow Putin and his cronies.
There is plenty of evidence that Putin feels very threatened, the use of body doubles, the crazy measures he takes when appearing in public, the rent-a-crowd faces that appear in many of his
PR videos/photos (that are clearly pro-Putin stooges). That alone suggest either that he is suffering from some sort of delusional disorder, or, I think more likely, he knows the threat to his life, even within secure places in Russia, is very high.
My personal prediction is that we will see another Russian revolution within the next 12 months, perhaps within 6 months. The outcome of that is, in my humble view, almost impossible to predict, and may well not be beneficial for anyone in the West, including, perhaps, Ukraine. My grandfather got caught up in the last Russian revolution, he was in Russia with the RFC as a flying instructor in 1917. Got out by the skin of his teeth before the Bolsheviks over-ran the place.