Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
Everything with the Russians is about security of the Motherland. They are extremely paranoid due to history.
If I was pretending to be Putin, then my next move would be to find justification to neutralize the rest of the Ukraine. Since I already have a agreement with Belarus that is basically like a client state agreement, and btw Russia is conducting joint air force exercises with Belarus and holding unity celebrations this weekend, it would give me a protective corridor from the Black Sea through to the Lithuania and Latvian borders.
Now, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are all Nato Allies and Putin knows that an attack on them will be responded to harshly.
But I'm willing to be that he knows that Nato's response would be a careful military response with no attacks on Russian soil. So, he can do one of two things
1) Try to take Estonia and bank on a weak Nato response and use that to bleed and then eventually break Nato
2) Put enormous pressure on Estonia to gain concessions in terms of territory .
Putin has always seen the Nato nations on Russia's border as a dire threat. He's trying to eliminate that threat, and possibly fracture NATO.
Its actually a pretty sound plan.
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It's actually a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
An intrinsic need to protect and buffer the Motherland due to a history of being invaded, and a history of being invaded due to being aggressive, expansionist and bullish to their neighbours.
Russians have expanded into their neighbours territory for centuries, and probably more than any other country in Europe.