My impressions so far:
1- The west DID corner Putin into invading Ukraine throwing both nations into a quagmire just like they did to Saddam.
2- Putin simply had no choice but playing into their hands. He should've known better. He had Crimea and the Donbass regions, now he may lose them...
During clashes between GNA and LNA in Libya, the latter's mouthpieces have claimed to have downed more TB-2s than it was actually produced at that time: 119! :ROFLMAO:
Putin was probably expecting some half-arsed sanctions à la the ones Russia had to face after annexing Crimea.
Until recently he thought that Europe could not risk the cutting of Russian gas and oil and I bet he wasn't expecting such harsh measures.
Now Russia is getting sanctions left and...
It says in this tweet (citing Russian sources) that Türkiye has shelved delivering the next batch of TB-2 drones to Ukraine fearing Russian threats of severing diplomatic relations.
Can anybody confirm?