Vladimir Putin is ready to launch an invasion of Nato nations and annex parts of Estonia and Sweden to test the West, the head of Poland's counterintelligence service has warned.
That's a BS headline made to scare people. The article boils down to "Russia theoretically has the capabilities to attack, but don't because they know the West will be angry".
Russia fucks around until someone deems them worthy of finding out. Sure, it seems fun when U.S. pilots are cranking up the AC/DC and doing their hero walk on the way to wipe every single Russian airbase and fuel depot off the map, but then half of the west’s water systems, electrical grids, and networking infrastructure gets hacked and severely damaged/bricked. Russia gets hacked and grinds to a standstill. China takes advantage of the chaos and invades Taiwan. The U.S. bombs the chip fabs in Taiwan into powder, and anti-satellite operations trigger the Kessler syndrome. Maybe some of the other regional conflicts pop off, too.
The bright side is that assuming no nukes fly, we’ll see earth’s habitability improve for a while, once people starve and consumption/ability to produce goes way down.
Measured against the damage caused so far and the destabilized global situation, such statements are naive.
During the Ukraine war, Russia and its allies have already proven several times what a laughing stock NATO is.
Funny how they can do that without NATO being involved at all beyond some member states providing weapons and training. The biggest damage NATO has suffered so far is from second hand embarrassment.
The amount of next level bending over Putin have been forced to do for Xi the last two years... and just to destabilize the world... Oh my. The pricetag on that one....
Long after the situation is stabilized, Russia will still be paying to China for the help they got.
I'm half convinced Putin wants NATO to get directly involved so that he can pull out of Ukraine and be like "We didn't lose to Ukraine, it was the West who once again oppresses poor little Russia"
I bet that will be his playbook if Joe Biden retains the White House.
If Trump returns to the White House, Putin will get a punch card for every NATO state he annexes—for every sixth country he conquers, he’ll get a genocide “free-pass”.
Russia can't even succeed against Ukraine. What makes him think he has a chance in hell against the combined power of NATO? Hell, man, I'm pretty sure the USA alone would make quick work of Russia in an all out war.
Russia has claimed it's going to attack a NATO country since before the Ukrainian war started. They like to say it every now and then, just to remind us that they exist and North Eastern Europe is not just an unpopulated wasteland.
Jarosław Stróżyk said Putin is in a position where he could begin planning a small-scale invasion but is holding back due to the West's response to the attack in Ukraine.
"Putin is certainly already prepared for some mini-operation against one of the Baltic countries, for example, to enter the famous Narva [municipality in Estonia] or to land on one of the Swedish islands," Mr Stróżyk told Polish paper Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
Tl;dr - We think that Putin has the capability to mount a small scale invasion, but isn’t doing it because of NATO’s potential response. But if we assume he really wants to, then he will.
They are not going to get a quarter mile into the EU (that's 0.4 km for you Euros). NATO doesn't need to march a bunch of missiles through the streets to feel tough. They keep them ready to go at the airbase.
And likely the US would eventually intervene once both sides had slugged it out for a while, ensuring they have a seriously compromised enemy and seriously dependent allies...and enrich themselves in the process.
I've had to point this out to people a few it's amazing how Americans think that the US is the only country in the world with any real military might.
Even without the United States NATO still has two nuclear powers. A military that would rival that of the US on its own. Access to space assets such as spy satellites, gps systems, and communication systems. Extensive bioweapons research labs, if they wanted to go that route (although realistically they would be better utilized to research bio defenses). And more money than the adversary. They also have a population that on the whole seem to be more on board with the politicians then not (relatively speaking).
I'm sure if there was a war, the French would go on strike about it, but they always do that.
All the United States brings to the table is just more people and more stuff. I'm not saying that wouldn't be useful to have access to it, but losing it wouldn't be as devastating as some Americans seem to think.
They barely have the manpower to push forward even in Ukraine. Then again if they ever want to do it now is the time because in a few decades they're not going to have enough fighting age men. I just really doubt this. If the current war has taught us anything it's that they would get absolutely obliterated by Nato and there are no winners in a nuclear exchange. Also them using nukes in Ukraine/Europe would mean nuking themselves too because that's the direction wind is going to push the fallout. Though that assumes they would care about their civilian population which they clearly don't.
This sounds like possible intelligence, based on the hawkish tone of france lately; europe has its best interests in going full article 5 if this happens.
Unfortunately it would never happen before jan 7 and a tragic election.