I thought Putin wanted to attack in the depths of winter, when German/W. European leaders would be afraid to take action for fear of losing the Russian gas and freezing their constituents' butts in the cold (although still in the comfort of their apartments), but maybe he got stuck with this late February date after with Xi Jinping demanded he not upstage the Winter Olympics[1], and not wanting to wait until next winter.<p>Hah, losing a war because of scheduling conflicts.<p>On the topic of freezing, I wonder if EU countries can send firefighting planes to drop water on top of these Russian soldiers, under the pretense of "We got reports from the Ukrainian government that there were forest fires!".<p>[1] <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/02/us/politics/russia-ukraine-china.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/02/us/politics/russia-ukrain...</a>
Unfortunately, unlike Napoleon, Putin has sufficient air power to bomb Ukranian settlements to rubble regardless of how cold the boots on the ground have become, and it looks increasingly like that's what he's doing.