February 20th, 2022 - Why I think Putin will go into The Ukraine

So, in my last hurried post I said I would explain my reasoning for why I think Putin will go into Ukraine. I have left it late enough, so I had better explain myself now before events overtake the need for any prediction.
Now, I am by no means a military expert, so my predictions are based on political calculations rather than any specialised knowledge of troop deployments and such like.
So, some reasons why I think Putin will go into The Ukraine:
Firstly, it is not primarily about NATO. If his stated demands were met, Putin would probably be happy and might put off the invasion for now, but I think that primarily his goal in going into The Ukraine would be the hope of reuniting the Russians. Putin considers Ukrainians to be Russians. Kiev was the capital of the first Russian state. Most of the Ukraine has been part of Russia for hundreds of years and the only reason it was part of a different state to Russia under the Soviet Union, in Putin's thinking, I presume, was because the Russians wanted to make the Soviet Union look like it was an International Union rather than just a Greater Russia, so they generously gave a bit of Russian territory to create some states like Belarus, which had never previously existed and The Ukraine, which had only existed when the Nazi's had control of the territory. The Russians had thought that Belarus and The Ukraine would always be under the control of the Soviet Politburo so there was no problem with calling these regions independent states. They had never imagined that their creations might actually become independent !! They even added the Crimea to The Ukraine in 1954. Thinking like this you can see that Putin, a strong nationalist, might want to correct the 'geopolitical tragedy' of the collapse of the Soviet Union and bring at least these, formerly Russian, states back into Russia. In Belarus it appears Putin has achieved this aim relatively peacefully (There is a 'Union State' agreement by which Russia and Belarus  are essentially merging). He must have thought he was on the way to achieving the same with the Ukraine when Viktor Yanukovych was elected President. He was hoping to get The Crimea back into Russia even more quickly with Yanukovych scheduling a referendum to be held in Crimea in 2014 to let the Crimea decide between the Ukraine, Russia and Independence. When Yanukovych was undemocratically overthrown Putin's strategy for peacefully reintegrating The Ukraine took a significant hit, though, I would assume. 
So, Putin's sense of grievance over The Ukraine is pretty strong. He believes The West underhandedly stole The Ukraine away from him by overthrowing a democratically elected President. He would also see an invasion as a noble effort to reunite his people. So his motivations to take control of the Ukraine are far stronger than some concerns about an aggressive foreign alliance structure. Geo-strategically there is a lot to gain as well, many analysts talk about Russia's declining population, extremely long borders, and open, easy-to-invade geography. Adding the Ukraine to Russia would add 40 plus million people while shortening their border and putting that border on an easily defensible mountain chain.
So, Putin has a lot to gain from bringing Ukraine back into the Russian fold. Not to mention, entry into the pantheon of Russian greats, if he pulls it off. And the greater the gain; the greater the risk one is willing to take to obtain it.

So, why now? Why during this particular standoff?
Well:

• Given that the West has started arming Ukraine, if he backs off now he will have incurred a price for his build up of troops (the better arming of Ukraine and the uniting of NATO) without having achieved any gain. Given that a price has already been paid Putin will not want to walk away.
• If Putin waits till next year Ukraine will only be better armed
• Right now, many European countries have a large dependency on Russian gas and oil and so are not very motivated to stop trading with Russia. In a year's time these countries might have diversified their economies away from Russian commodities.
• Right now, many in the American administration see China as America's biggest concern and so their attention is divided. In a year's time, China might have been laid low by a financial crises, causing the US administration to start rating Russia as their strongest competitor.
• Given that the US has at no point said they will help defend Ukraine militarily, the one card that might really dissuade Putin has not been played.

Given all of the above, it is my prediction that Putin will act rather than back down.
One way or the other, we will soon know.