Video of the day -- democracy vs fascism (updated)

Deutsche Welle interviews US historian Anne Applebaum about the Ukraine crisis and Putin's objectives.  Ultimately this isn't about NATO expansion or rebuilding the Soviet empire -- it's about democracy, and Putin's fear that its appeal might spread into Russia and undermine his kleptocratic gangster-regime.  If Ukraine, which is so culturally similar to Russia, can establish a stable free society, it will show Russians that they themselves could do the same.

The emerging consensus in the West is that if Russia invades, Western countries will not send troops to fight the Russians, but will impose economic sanctions and send Ukraine weapons.  It's the latter measure that will be the most important.  Putin is unlikely to be impressed by threats of sanctions, but he has very good reason to fear large-scale casualties among his forces.  Ukraine is more capable of fighting back than most Westerners think -- it has a tough and professional army, and while Russia looms huge on the map, its advantage in population over Ukraine is only about three-to-one.  Large-scale assistance in the form of Western weapons (which is already under way) could turn Putin's hoped-for quick conquest into a long-drawn-out meat-grinder for the Russian army, as Afghanistan was for the Soviets.  The Russian people already seem to have little enthusiasm for a war in Ukraine; a steady flow of body bags back home from such a war would do more to stoke mass anger and destabilize Putin's regime than any other strategy we could use.

Update (9:10 PM):  No, sending troops into a couple of fake separatist "republics", which have been under de facto Russian control for years anyway, does not constitute an invasion.  Extending them diplomatic recognition, too, is not changing the actual situation on the ground -- it's empty symbolism, like the Beijing regime's claim that Taiwan is part of China or some governments' diplomatic fiction that Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel.  The West is right to condemn these actions and impose some sanctions, but this is not the real invasion everyone has been worrying about.  If Putin goes no further, these moves should be seen as a face-saving measure by which he backs down from an actual invasion while still being able to claim domestically that he asserted Russia's power and gained something.

Many observers have been baffled by Biden's repeated statements that an invasion has already been ordered and is imminent.  Electoral-Vote takes a shot at explaining what he might be doing.