Damien

There was also an alternative outcome to this in Putin's head where Ukraine falls quickly, the West has a divided response and imposes weak sanctions and Putin secures Ukraine as a puppet state looking like a genius in doing so. Another Crimea.

The West was weak in Russia when he annexed Crimea and it was weak when he deployed a biological weapon on British soil. He probably didn't expect that this would be the line when the West has had enough and finally imposes biting sanctions. There is so much news that it's hard to keep up but Germany has abandoned decades of reticence about militarisation, Switzerland appears to be willing to abandon neutrality and sanction Russian bankers and the West has united to impose the biggest set of sanctions it's ever applied to Russia. A week ago people were saying Putin had sanction-proofed the Russian economy because of the foreign reserves he built up, so we just sanctioned them.

Most importantly Ukraine proved more resistance than I think anyone outside of Ukraine predicted. That has also been a reason the West has rallied around sensing that this time we can stop him.

The way the West has finally woken up and showed it's strength is one positive to take from all of this.