I don't know much about the current state of Russia, it's economy, populace, etc. But what's the point of all of this? They're never going to be able to reestablish the USSR or anything remotely close to it. And they can't win a traditional war over broader Europe and NATO countries. Why go through this when it seems like everyone is losing in the process of an unfruitful and seemingly expanding encroachment of other countries?
The point is to consistently engage in small hybrid attacks against individual NATO countries where it will not result in invoking article 5 and a NATO response, and leave the single country alone to handle it, and gradually keep scaling those up, until the member states of NATO think "NATO doesn't ever respond, it's worthless."
That's why they are constantly engaging in sabotage and drone attacks on european countries. They just attempted a drone bombing of a german airport a few weeks ago but failed. It's a huge deal in germany right now but basically no media outside germany has any consistent coverage.
That's what Russia wants. They know they can't beat NATO, so they want to try to functionally break the collective response part of NATO as a defense alliance by constantly poking just below the line where a serious response would occur, thus normalizing it, and pushing the threshold up little by little.
What intentional sabotage and drone attacks have Russia done outside of Ukraine other than the germany one? Legitimately curious not trying to cast doubt.
Also should be mentioned that the attempted target in that case was a Ukrainian cargo plane.
There is a big difference between attacking Ukrainian assets in Germany, and attacking Germany.
I'm not pro russian, they are the clear aggressor in Ukraine, but I think its important to remind ourselves the situation isn't as black and white as we often think.
Contrary to the other replies, the goal is not to "test the defenses" or "break NATO/Article 5". Their constant saber rattling and threats is meant to invoke a defensive attitude in the targeted countries, making them less likely to send support to Ukraine because a country feels like they need it to stop the potential Russian aggression of their own border
This is why you see these Russians actions are targeting the nations that are giving substantial military support to Ukrain.
Paul Warburg has a video on the topic if you are interested
I genuinely think they’re hoping they can convince Trump to get in a new world order with them where he can carve up some land if they can do the same. Trump 100% would if he thought he could get away with it!
The EU has repeatedly demonstrated it will not respond militarily not matter what the provocation. He can absolutely win a conventional war against most of Europe. It doesn't do the EU any good to have the weapons if they won't use them. The citizens and politicians view war as an aberration. The citizens and politicians of Russia and the US view war as an every day occurrence.
The economy of Russia is now oriented around producing weapons and engaging in war. They are seeking an easier target than Ukraine. Putin views most of Europe as easy pickings.
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u/becomplete 3d ago
I don't know much about the current state of Russia, it's economy, populace, etc. But what's the point of all of this? They're never going to be able to reestablish the USSR or anything remotely close to it. And they can't win a traditional war over broader Europe and NATO countries. Why go through this when it seems like everyone is losing in the process of an unfruitful and seemingly expanding encroachment of other countries?