Geopolitics can be a gamble. But the reward should be greater than the risk. When Vladimir Putin went Third Reich on Ukraine, he chose poorly.

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FNC: “Russian President Vladimir Putin underestimated the strength of the Ukrainian resistance as well as the harsh backlash from the United States and Western allies when he invaded Ukraine last month, experts tell Fox News.

The U.S. continued piling sanctions on Russia Tuesday, implementing a ban on oil imports from the country in what President Biden called ‘another powerful blow to Putin’s war machine.’ ”

“As Putin’s military becomes increasingly bogged down in a long, violent war that has turned the world overwhelmingly against him, many Russians have yet to understand the full consequences of what has happened.”https://t.co/0Vg3BLFz7I

— Foreign Affairs (@ForeignAffairs) March 8, 2022

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“Putin miscalculated the Ukrainians’ willingness to fight, the leadership style and willingness to die for the cause of [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy,” Rebekah Koffler, a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer told press. He miscalculated “the backlash of Western audiences, Europeans, Americans and even a segment of the Russian population who are anti-war.

“[Putin] didn’t anticipate how technology has brought this conflict into the homes of ordinary people all over the world, by virtue of it unfolding on our TVs and on our computer screens,” Koffler said. “He was counting on the fact that he could keep it hidden, not only from the Russian people, but also from the rest of the world. Well, it’s no longer the case.”

“The sanctions could make it very difficult to govern Russia, in the sense that people’s savings have been wiped out, factories will start to close, and there are fewer high-tech imports that are needed for the Russian economy. And obviously, the financial elite has taken a real beating,” Timothy Frye, the professor of post-Soviet foreign policy at Columbia University, told media.

“At some point, Putin, who has long been averse to any kind of domestic political instability, might fear the reaction from the elite and from the mass public, and begin to look for a way out of this situation, but we’re not there yet,” Frye said. “It could take a while before we get there.

“The message will slowly get through, particularly if the military gets bogged down significantly,” Frye said. “This is an extraordinarily volatile time, I think, in Russian public opinion towards the war.”