Trump is panicking about his failed healthcare bill, his son getting caught meeting with former Soviet spies and lying about it, Iran jailing a US citizen, not being able to control North Korea and looking weak also not to mention his historically low 36% approval rating.
He needs a win!
His civilian collateral damage in Syria is set to double the amount Obama did in his 2 years. 360 per month, no wonder he is thinking about closing the State Dept's war crimes office.
He demands a win at any cost!
Trump sees treachery and failure all around him, he can only trust his sycophants feeding him praise instead of facts. The reign of Caligula must have been a little like this.
Putin is not panicking, he is denying whatever with a chuckle and a shrug. At the same time applying pressure on Trump to give back the Russian compounds on US soil that Obama seized. Something is gonna give.
'Please Donald, it makes our spying on you more difficult.'
Trump seems to believe the word of Putin than he does his Secret Service or his Intel agencies because he doesn't like what they tell him. He publicly shames and belittles them ... not a good enemy to go making. Disgruntled employees with top level clearance.
He may very well justify giving the properties back as a sign of good faith, if he doesn't Putin may very well expel diplomats but that would only be symbolic as without a fully working State Dept (many jobs haven't been filled as Trump has been slack) the ambassadors are pretty useless anyways.
Trump has claimed to be a businessman. Who the fuck would match a mostly failed businessman with a top level Statesman? Trump can't read people which is how Saudi Arabia played him for a fool over Qatar.
One thing that gets over looked by the west is The Chechen Republic. They don't have nukes but meatheaded tough guy Ramzan Kadyrov has said they have them and they would totally fuck up the US with them if they had to.
They wouldn't have made the nukes but Russia is nice like that, it gives weapons to allies so they can shoot down passenger planes with etc.
Putin understands that he can't go full Stalin (his hero) who outlawed homosexuality as that would look bad. The Chechen Republic has been targeting gays though. Putin did outlaw Jehovah's Witnesses though, Stalin hated them too.
The Chechen Republic is like a proxy Russia or even a test patch for Putin to see how the west reacts.
Like flybys or warships sailing too close, it's a form of probing. So far the west has been pretty apathetic about the gays in The Chechen Republic or the Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia. What can they do make up more sanctions?
Dadayev was the deputy commander of a battalion
Kadyrov had a team of Special ops troops kill Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov. Of course nothing can be traced back. Just like the hackers constantly attacking the infrastructure systems of the west at this very moment can't be traced back to Putin ... just private citizen patriots.
Patriots that just happened to be Chechen special forces and just happened to target Putin's only real opposition.
The journalists that have died or vanished during Putin's rule
Kadyrov is the wildcard Putin keeps close to his chest. For now he uses him on opposition politicians and journalists.
If he ever needed to use Kadyrov on the world stage with some event possibly nuclear he'd have plausible deniability and Kadyrov would see doing it as an honour, he's the ultimate goon, he's one of Putin's many monkeys and Putin being the ultimate organ grinder.
There was a very good reason why Obama and Hillary were so hard on Russia, if you believe their innocent victim ploy you will regret it.
