Originally Posted by
dead_pan
On which note there was an interesting comment during the Parliamentary select committee discussion with General Sir Richard Barron posted here a few days ago on whether posting a battalion or two of NATO troops into Kyiv would have deterred Putin, knowing what we know now about Russia's military (in)capabilities.
But it would appear Putin had a vastly inflated idea of his own military's capabilities, so he may have gone in regardless with his best gear from the start (assuming any of it is real or actually works) and who knows where that would have spiralled to.
Syria & Iran for starters, a bunch on tinpot African “countries” that Trump had a far more appropriate name for, India maybe, North Korea if they could afford it, and of course China. Even just funnelling it through another country seems to get around embargoes. No country is going to sit with that off their coast while their people begin go starve if this gets really bad in the next year or so.