As I have said before, where does Putin stop, based on his justification for intervention in Ukraine? What about the (large) minority Russian-speaking populations in the three Baltic States, who, coincidentally, have been granted Russian passports by a generous Federation Government? What about the rest of Georgia? Eastern Poland, perchance?
I've got open in front of me the 1895 Times Atlas of the World. My, how big 'European Russia' was. Include Finland in that, along with Galicia, big chunks of Romania and Georgia. And Belorussia, which remains a client state.
Shall we add property holdings in London to that list?
I had a discussion over lunch with someone comparing it with, say, a theoretical intervention in the Irish Republic if British nationals were being targeted. We (the UK) would get pretty upset if Russia stormed in there to sort it out, feeling (as with Grenada in 1983) that this was a 'British' problem. The difference with this solipsism is that Ukraine (and Eire) are sovereign states, and Russia has now trampled over Wesphalian principals and the 1994 Memorandum (which has treaty status in international law). Moreover, for those who compare Western intervention in the Balkans and elsewhere is that this is not customary practise - that is, most states, irrespective of what is happening to their neighbours, do not intervene. This is nothing more than well-scripted expansionism.
But RF is vulnerable - as posted above it has a weak economy buoyed up on one commodity. It has a shrinking population that is actually drinking itself to death and the nomenklatura fear Chinese expansion in economic, influence and military spheres. So what if Putin hikes the price of gas and oil up or restricts supplies? We are entering Spring and there has been a lot of work over the last 10 years to increase supply resilience in Western Europe and if OPEC could be persuaded to flood the market (think Saudi Arabia), the Russian economy - which benefits from no inward investment (who would invest in Russia? None of the Oligarchs do...) - would collapse pretty quickly. Interestingly, this is the opinion of a former HMA to Moscow, whom I've just seen interviewed on BBC.
And all this nonsense of elite troops. Remember the elite Republican Guard? Utter bilge.*
*Edited to add that double-digit SAM systems are a wee bit problematic, though.