Without losing face, how Putin can de-escalate without having gained concessions

And, paradoxically, while Putin's military buildup at the border has triggered Western and Ukrainian rage at Russia, is the buildup itself rather designed, from Putin's perspective, to garner empathy for Russia's concerns?

There has been report (e.g., "U kraine Crisis: Putin the gambler may have gone too far to back down," Atlantic Council) that posits that Putin, to save face, might feel forced to invade Ukraine if NATO and Ukraine are not more flexible to Russian demands. In fact, such an invasion seems imminent. However, it might actually be that Putin, as he has claimed, does not plan to invade. Rather, Russia's heightened militarization at the Ukrainian border might be for another purpose: It could be a symbolic, dramatic gesture designed to trigger Western empathy to Russia's security concerns!

After all, if the West has been going batty about the border buildup, doesn't Russia, also, have a right to feel nervous if NATO, a military alliance, is building members on Russia's border? Therefore, if this author's speculation is accurate, that is, if a primary point of the buildup, at this time anyway, is for a show more than any real invasion, Putin, even if he does not, now, win major concessions, could sufficiently de-escalate without losing any face once he feels that the West and Ukraine, due to the Russian troop buildup, have become hysterical enough, about an immediate war, so that his pointwhich Putin could reveal by a sudden, simple de-escalationmight be made.

Moreover, since Ukraine's president has, for the first time, and at the Munich Security Conference, publicly stated that he feels that Russia truly might invade at any moment, Putin's point, at last, can have been made, since the West had achieved that same fear some time ago. Meaning, if the author's speculation is correct, the now seems the perfect moment for a sudden, unannounced, de-escalation from Russia so that Putin might achieve his endswhich is more flexibility from the West and Ukraine to Russia's security demands.

Recognize: It might have been that Russia had already made its hard-thought-out calculations and concluded that if it allows NATO to continue its expansion eastward, Russia will, in whatever amount of time down the road, be backed into a corner that it might not be able to extricate itself from. If so, Russia may recognize that it would, in future, feel compelled to go to war before that time when it would no longer be able, due to greater NATO power at its own borders, to back itself out of a corner. Really, Putin, himself has near-enough publicized such a conclusion.

If the above is accurate, Russia, of a truth, might feel no desire to fight a war with Ukraine if it does not have to. Nonetheless, Russia might feel convinced that it will, down the road, be forced to fight if it allows NATO to expand at its borders. Therefore, what else might Russia, now, do but buildup at the border to get the West, via the West's worried reaction to the buildup, to feel what Russia is more and more feeling like as NATO has continued to expand eastward?

Actually, it might be that Putin and high ups in the Kremlin are, at present, ironically laughing at the West over its lack of recognition of the symbolic point that Putin and Russia are making: Does not the West, which always speaks of its own, high morality, not yet recognize the ancient Golden Rule?

If this author's speculation is correctthat is, if Putin does not really want a war but knows that if the West is not more flexible, the Russian mentality is such that it will feel compelled to fight a war down the roadthe West has certainly not yet caught on to such symbolic expression (which, considering the great minds of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, is certainly a profound manner by which Russians might intuitively communicate): Only consider U.S. House Speaker Pelosi's recent, inflammatory-to-Russia remarks made at the Munich Security Conference: "There's a price to pay for what Putin has put us through now. . . . This isn't 'bully the world and then take a walk,' and you're off the hook."

Tragically, Pelosi gives Russia more reason to invade! Also, does she not see that she is being a bully back, fighting fire with fire and not fire with, as Sir David Frost famously wrote, clever diplomacy that gets the opponent to desire, from his or her own free will, the same result that the proponent desires? Rather, instead of antagonizing Russia (when an invasion might lead, as Pelosi knows, to a radioactive accident!), why didn't she say something inarguable like the following:

Peace is the ideal; and, peace, for the long term, is achieved only via enduring, free-will union where all parties lastingly fairly compromise and lastingly mutually benefit. Therefore, what is the very first step, on this long road to permanent peace? How might we all begin to gain more faith in one another and de-escalate this conflict that is in no nation's ultimate interests? Our first step is one, single compromise that we all can live with in the now and future. And, let us make that compromise public knowledge ahead of time. Too, let us confirm that the media, in each of our nations, is similarly reporting the nature of that compromise that has been made. Otherwise, how might we, in unison, take a single step forward were each party's resultant actions that it took in its perceptual fulfillment of the compromise open to various interpretations? We could not because a house divided could not stand.

Returning to this author's speculation about Putin's border-buildup motives, one might ask: Wouldn't such a buildup, speaking of Russia's pocketbook, be a very expensive point for the sake of symbolism? Yes. However, Russia already has had large numbers of troops on the Ukrainian border for some time without it winning major concessions from the West or Ukraine. Therefore, and in contrast to Biden's comments of a "war of choice," Russia might feel that that future time of a warone that it does not want but feels compelled to fight in order to keep NATO away from its bordersseems to be drawing close enough so that the Russia needs the military exercises.

Therefore, the West and the Ukraine, taking the old adage of gathering more flies with honey than vinegar to heart, should, in this author's opinion and unlike Pelosi's comments, become more flexible if, in fact, Russia suddenly de-escalates. Surely, no one needs a war in future, especially not Ukraine, with so many minimally secured nuclear reactors. Morally speaking, how might Ukraine fight back, instead of raising the white flag at a Russian invasion, if the fight-back itself would be, as the Ukrainian government has admitted, a likely impetus to trigger a radioactive contamination? But, if Ukraine raises the white flag at an invasion so that there is no fighting, there is little chance of either a radioactive accident or damage to infrastructure that supports the nation's nuclear plants. Meaning, Ukraine, please, immediately, be more flexibleso to prevent an invasion that, for your own best interests, you couldn't morally fight against if the fight back would trigger a nuclear accident. A Russian invasion, that you do not fight against, will come and go. An invasion that you do fight against will, also, come and go. However, in the latter case, any radioactive contamination resulting from such a fight will stay.