[Ike Bana]

Timothy Ash, senior emerging markets sovereign strategist at BlueBay Asset Management, said in a note Tuesday that “if Putin has really blinked, this would be huge win for Biden, [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy and the West.”“They called out Putin for threats [and] menacing military actions and failed to concede anything much on Putin’s red lines,” he said.Ash added that it would be difficult to see the entire situation as anything but a big defeat for Putin.“What did he achieve?” he said. “He managed to rally the West back around NATO, which again has common purpose. Ukrainian sovereignty [has been] affirmed, even strengthened.”As a result of Russia’s aggressive activity, Ukraine’s military was now better armed and better able to defend itself, Ash added.“Russia has been called out as an unreliable energy supplier — the West will accelerate diversification away from Russian energy sources,” he said. ”[Putin’s] bluff was called. He may have written a long essay over the close historical links between Russia and Ukraine, but some will say he was the Russian leader who actually lost Ukraine. That will be his mark in history — he accelerated Ukraine’s Western orientation.” - CNBC 2/15/22

Russia begins partial troop pullback from Ukraine border

Now watch American conservatives who will have no choice but to pimp for Putin as some sort of honorable guy...simply because they can't admit a win for Joe Biden. At some point in this last conversation with Putin, in so many words Biden told him that if he goes through with this he's not gonna like what happens.