Also it appears the metadata of the video of his speech just before the attack indicates it was actually shot 3 days earlier, which illustrates even further that any resemblance of negotiations were just smoke and mirrors.

Or... you pre-record both 'attack' and 'no-attack' speeches ahead of time, because you know the actual moment will be very stressful and you won't have time.

'Negotiations as misdirection' makes literally no sense. Who would he be misdirecting? Nobody is coming to Ukraine's aid.

If he said for example a day earlier "I will attack" NATO countries could have moved a few troops to protect their embassies pre-emptively, which would have likely been a very shrewd de-escalation, as attacking NATO troops directly would have risked an unintended escalation.

After he has attacked, he has the initiative, and can threaten ww3 if any NATO troops enter the combat zone, and a few troops are not much use anyway.

Timing.

He clearly misdirected Ukrainians.

> 'Negotiations as misdirection' makes literally no sense. Who would he be misdirecting? Nobody is coming to Ukraine's aid.

The US waited until the actual invasion began to impose serious sanctions. Misdirecting for a few days could easily have bought Putin enough time to make arrangements for both his personal and national finances. That's idle speculation on my part, but it doesn't seem terribly unlikely.

exactly right. fx levels, bond sales, gold stockpiling, this was planned for years in advance, in anticipation of financial sanctions. he has a very, very assymetric risk/reward in this war.