Originally Posted by
pr00ne
Far from being not stupid, it is still perhaps the most stupid post that I have ever seen on PPRune!
Let's agree to disagree on that.
Originally Posted by
pr00ne
You seriously suggested that "the west" in some kind of non NATO way, invades Russia and Belarus and occupies Moscow, if that is not the definition of insanity...
Please read again, what I wrote, is a little different from what you have in your mind.
Originally Posted by
pr00ne
You may not be scared about the world's largest collection of strategic nuclear weapons in the hands of a paranoid megalomaniac, but other sane folk certainly are. And as for them being old, well that will be some consolation when a 1MT weapon detonates over our head, at least it was old.... Geez!
Of course.
Though today's' "big day" with big announcements expected, were somewhat of a disappointment:
- No general mobilization.
- No Nukes thread.
- No new ideas how to solve Russia's Ukraine issue.
- Not even an airshow.
- Limited military hardware and not looking that modern to me.
The only big announcement was, that Russia did expect to be attacked by the NATO and as such invaded Ukraine (No more Nazi's ?). A bit of a strange reasoning, but hey, this is Putin.
At the military level, that presumed NATO invasion was obviously fake news. NATO is not going to attack Russia without being attacked first, let alone, how to keep such plans secret in a Western society with free press and leaks everywhere. Let alone, all the democratic governments with a whole flavor in the political spectrum, expected to approve such invasion plans. Strange, to put it mildly.
However, when diving into this Putin statement, something completely different shows up. And I think, with that, we do have the real reason for the Ukraine invasion.
The NATO/West expands more and more, simply because the former USSR countries politically convert to societies of freedom (just because habitants want that). And with that type of society a political match with existing NATO countries rises, subsequent joinings with NATO will become history, etc.
From the Russia point of view, step by step, all the former USSR countries start to politically reform into something that can be described as a democracy. It is realistic to expect, this will continue until all (or at least west of Russia) the former USSR countries are "converted". And then, the Western side of Russia is "surrounded" by wealthy NATO countries, all closely bordering with Russia. And the freedom and wealth in those converted countries becomes visible to the Russians living near those NATO borders. These Russians simply start to get jealous and want that freedom and wealth too. The connection is easily made that a change of political system created the significant better living conditions for the converted NATO countries.
Which in turn would be a major existential threat to Russia with its current political system, based on suppression and military focus.
So, for Russia, how to break through that chain of events ?
Just invade and take-over the governments of the countries not yet converted. Since recapturing the smaller NATO countries with military force would be dangerous due to the NATO military threat, it would be better to do that capture via the political processes (Hungary, for example).
And, yep, when successfully, Tsar Putin would go into the history books as the rescuer of the USSR inheritance.