@Adam Yes, I did two aggressive science victories!

@Cerberus Not terribly stressful, nothing I can't handle, just quite a lot of work lately.

@cmw OK I'm glad!

@Cerberus ooooh you were on today's! But when I did it, my today was your yesterday.

I get the joke now. I thought you were referring to Trinidad and Tobago.

@Cerberus Yeah, it seems that Russia doesn't even care if it joins NATO.

@Nickimite: puto eum (cmw) ad te pertinisse ("cur N. timeat?"). quid ages, in posterum, post eruditionem?

@Cerberus: You "crushed" your opponent! Why such devastating & violent imagery? Did you take gleeful delight in this triumph? Was it a grudge match? Do you play chess? (The most appropriate Latin verb for "to crush", in terms of winning a game by an overwhelming margin, would be "opprimo". Do you agree?)

@JoonasIlmavirta Since they can't stop it and they don't actually want to start a global conflict, the best position they can put themselves to seem strong is to feign apathy.

@Adam Exactly. It's essentially an acknowledgement that it's outside their power, and that in the context of their earlier statements is as close to admitting defeat as they get.

@JoonasIlmavirta Yea. I wonder if it will even affect how Russia and Finland interact.

@Joonas: Does Putin have a face-saving way-out of this? If not, must it continue indefinitely?

@Adam It certainly will, but I hope that in a couple of years this detail will fade away and normalcy will resume.

A lot depends on how Russia develops forward, and my guess is as good as yours.

@tony Out of what? The war in Ukraine or the (likely) expansion of NATO?

@Joonas: He cannot do anything about NATO, except start a nuclear-war, which does not appear to be on the immediate agenda. (We'd better hope that it isn't.) Therefore, what is increasingly coming to resemble a World-War-One stalemate, if (if) we are being told the (whole) truth, will rumble on until somebody grows tired of the killing & the dying. What do you think?

@tony The situation in Ukraine is very different from WW1. There are no clear front lines and things move quickly, even if often back and forth. The losses and goals are far from symmetric.

It might be slow, but I wouldn't call it a stalemate at this point and I certainly wouldn't say it's like WW1.

Russia can afford enormous losses if she so wants, and can outlast Ukraine. But whether it'd be worth it is hard to judge from the outside. There are many possible outs, but none of them are in the near future.

@JoonasIlmavirta I think a likely outcome is Russia shores up the small amount of Ukraine they've taken, boasts that they "de-nazified" Ukraine, then states they are keeping control of the areas the captured in order to "maintain peace".

@Adam I think they formally went in upon the request of separatists in the east. "Pacifying" those areas would be a valid victory, I imagine.

But I don't think Ukraine is close to willing to let go of that land.

@tony O! Nunc educatus, mihi necesse est vitam condere. Fortesse agam negotium anno, aut forte negotium quo peto inveniam. Volo docere ad scholam per maiores discipulos. Peto negotiis nunc, quo tempore praesente. Volo docere quomodo linguam latinm dicere.