Was Putin's playbook for Ukraine written in Syria?

 If so, I think this was a very big mistake. yes. This means he has veterans fighting who fought in Syria and some who fought in Grozny or Georgia too. But, mostly troops are green and draftees like ours mostly were before the early 1970s before the draft ended.

As you can see the whole world feels violated and considers Putin a War Criminal at this point. Even China is keeping it's distance from Putin because it could lose a lot of money if it sides with Putin now the world completely hates Putin. And State Capitalism is the Chinese business.

So, Putin has backed himself into a corner than he might not be able to get out of without using nuclear or chemical weapons. 

In other words, he could easily go for broke. But, that would end the human race too and likely turn Earth into another asteroid belt as well.

(We already have one planet that had a nuclear war and is already an asteroid belt. We don't really need two do we?)