215
KIEV – All that is rational, in war, is not said to be real. Let’s take the big, expected, feared, announced (by the Ukrainians) large-scale Russian offensive that Moscow is expected to launch in days. There are reasonable reasons to believe that Putin really needs it, both to dig out of the quagmire a conflict that has reached its first anniversary and is not going quite as he planned, and to add substance to the speech he will give in the Duma on February 21st.