President Vladimir Putin on Friday accused NATO member Poland of having territorial ambitions in the former Soviet Union, and said any aggression against Russia's neighbour and close ally Belarus would be considered an attack on Russia.
Poland won't, but according to Hitler in September 1st, 1939, Nazi Germany was defending itself from Polish attacks.
I think putin is thinking of forcing Belarus with Wagner to attack Poland and see how NATO will react when the threat would be war with Russia (if NATO will respond, which I hope it will, I think Belarus will get the same help as Armenia).
I think NATOs response would have to be a strong, decisive one. No NATO member wants the Alliance to look weak. Nobody wants World War III, either, but I think they’d conclude that showing weakness is riskier than calling Putin’s bluff.
Poland is a major supply hub and has lost plenty of boots on the ground. Art 5 isn't automatic. US won't risk nuking for expendables. All Europe is expendable.
Europe has nukes, and an industrial capacity that dwarfs Russia multiple times over and is roughly equal to the US.
Russia has about as much chance attacking Europe as Japan would attacking China on their own.
Also without Europe, the US has no capacity to develop semiconductors better than what Russia has. In the extremely unlikely event Europe falls to Russia, the US will not be far behind.
I think after Poland ignored two Russian missiles, putin is thinking to use Wagner from Belarus to test and see what will happen if NATO country gets attacked. The normal answer would be that it would be war between Belarus and NATO. Which should be fairly quick. He is trying to tip the scale by saying Russia will be also back Belarus if attacked (BTW Hitler also stated WW2 claiming Poland attacked Nazi Germany), hoping that NATO won't back up Poland.
Thing is, every line Russia has drawn in the sand, accession to NATO, arms supplies to Ukraine etc have been proven to be empty words. Russia has backed off each time.
An attack on Poland from Belarus would quickly lead to an invasion from Poland. Securing Ukraine's northern border would free up a lot of Ukrainian resources and would put NATO soldiers in another neighboring country to Russia.
It would be suicide for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
No, Putin. An attack on Belarus is only an attack on Belarus. Someone would have to attack Russia for it to be an attack on Russia. Look at a fucking map.
(Yes, I’m being obtuse, but giving this asshole a hard time makes me smile. Cut me some slack.)
Putin's been invading Ukraine since 2014. His 3-day special operation is going on for 514 days, had him running from a mutiny (I need a ride,not ammo!), has killed 241,330 Russians, has the Kerch bridge opening and closing like a fucking accordion, and is a global criminal. And all against a country with no nukes, no navy, barely an airforce, a tenth of Russia's defense budget, and 28 times smaller than Russia.
He's losing so badly, the whole world's laughing at him.
As I said earlier, Putin's standup act is very funny.
Oh no, I'm shaking in my boots. It sure would be a shame if the might of the Russian military invaded my country. They're having trouble invading a small, neighboring nation by land, but I should totally fear them crossing an ocean to invade a nation that has an objectively superior military. Maybe if I defend him online, Putin will spare me. Notice me, Putin-san! uwu.
This night for the first time Polish regular soldiers fired on our territory. Since 5:45 a.m. we have been returning the fire, and from now on bombs will be met by bombs.
I'm not up to snuff on NATO regulations. As I understand it, if a NATO nation gets attacked, the rest of them are obliged to defend, correct? What happens if that nation is "the aggressor". Like in this situation if Poland were to do a first strike against Belarus or Russia and they respond attacking Poland, is the rest of NATO obliged to help defend Poland?
No, NATO doesn't interfere if a member starts a war. It's a defensive treaty. That said, Poland alone wouldn't be able to do much, and democracies rarely openly declare war.
I had a deployment with Polish soldiers. They are a modern and extremely capable defensive force. It would likely turn into the same thing we're seeing in Ukraine (smaller force that is well trained and better supplied vs sending a lot of bodies and old tech). I don't think we'll ever see a Polish led force invading Belarus or Russia without a massive NATO backing and a lot of foreign units already on the way to support them. Defensively, they will fuck you up. Offensively, they don't have the man power to go deep into enemy territory.
The Polish have historical grudges with Russia and are chomping at the bit to hurt some Russians. It is probably NATO that is holding them back from sending units to Ukraine
However what if a NATO country starts a war with Belarus, and then Russia attacks the NATO country?
The NATO country would never have initiated a war with Russia, they would have initiated it with Belarus.
Does a NATO country automatically become vulnerable if they have any wars currently ongoing? Because that would mean Russia could have attacked America during the war in Afghanistan and NATO would not have been able to get involved.
As long as an attack happens on NATO territory, it's considered an act of war. Even if the NATO country is the aggressor. Ideally the aggressing country would be suspended before they could invoke article 5.
Imagine how dangerous it would be if NATO was, instead of a defensive pact, a transnational nuclear military helmed by the world's foremost genocidal empire that marches across Europe via propaganda and coup d'etats towards it's ultimate goal of encircling Russia and China. What a cluster fuck that would be? In that reality, if a member state launched a war of aggression NATO would probably support it and continue escalation.
Luckily, we know NATO is a defensive force because it didn't launch multiple wars of aggression, drop depleted uranium on civilians, and is democratically accountable.
Is it only me or does Putin look really bad in this photo? I mean he seems unhealthy and in addition to that he looks like he aged 10 years in just 2. Amazing speedrun.
There’s a reasonable argument to be made that if Putin uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine, we use similarly sized nuclear weapons on Belarus. It’s the only non-escalatory, tit-for-tat response we have.
If retaliatory nuclear weapons are on the table, why would we launch them at Belarus instead of at Moscow? Not saying we should use nukes, btw. I would think that a better response to Putin nuking Ukraine would be a more precise attack against Putin himself and senior officers involved in greenlighting a nuclear attack on Ukraine. We can't just go eye for an eye when it comes to tens of thousands of civilians. We need to ensure no more dead innocents, not give them the same number of dead innocents. Especially because people like Putin just straight up don't give a shit about civilians, including the ones on his side. He's a sociopath who cares only about what benefits him personally, so nuking Belarus accomplishes nothing.