Putin Playing the World For a Bunch of Suckers...& It Appears He'll Get Away Handily With His Little Strategem...Though America Comes Away with No Glory

 Where the people of the Ukraine - and all the (15) former Soviet Republic nation-states - are mere pawns in his sordid, tawdry game of baltic chess...

He has y'all checkmated before he even begins...so better to give up folks while you're ahead - and at least save your lives...

Or, 'Be wise, and let him who can(,) be clever'.

See 'the Hungry Lion and the Wise Fox' (in Aesop's Fables, 1965).