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Comment by ivan_gammel | Hacker News Reader

> German navy chief did not say anything with regard to factual state at Ukrainian borders.

Indeed he did not. However he said that such invasion to annex more of Ukrainian territory does not make sense. In order to run a very expensive and widely unpopular military operation you do need a good motive, and this means that whatever is the purpose of the military buildup, invasion is not the goal.

Russian military did not invade undisputed territories since War in Afghanistan and they now prefer hybrid wars or limited peacekeeping operations, rather than full scale invasions. They may provide some support to Donbas, but there is actually no point even investing in that. Minsk agreements are quite favorable to Russia, so it brings more value to persuade Germany and France that Ukraine needs more pressure to implement them. No, the real target of this buildup is NATO, playing Biden into signing new security treaties.

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True, it does not make sense to invade Ukraine second time. And hopefully Russia will not invade.

We will see.

Ukraine will not be allowed to join NATO due to disputed territories anyway.

As a Pole, after full blown invasion on Ukraine, I would support increase in military spending beyond current goal of 2.5%.

I also think that Sweden and Finland would join NATO relatively soon after invasion. After 2014 annexation of Crimea support for NATO grew there some 20-30%. Sweden is rattled enough to deploy symbolic military presence to Gotland. Joining NATO is part of political discussion in Finland, but they are on the edge.

Russia would only lose on war with Ukraine.

We all will lose if any side of the conflict starts the war. For Poland this may mean, for example, a refugee crisis on the scale far beyond what we had after conflict in Syria. I do not think this will happen.

As for the expansion of NATO, any change in the military configuration of it is an unnecessary and significant escalation. Russia is not threatening neither Finland, nor Sweden, not even close, but we will get at least an arms race in Baltic region if they join. Russian military strategy is that of active defense, they build up the power to protect their own territory. They do not have capabilities to attack and occupy Poland or Finland for a long time, mainly for logistical reasons (their army will run out of fuel quickly and won’t be able to resupply fast enough). The worst part of the expansion is not that there’s a hypothetical risk of a conflict but that it strengthens Putin. He has built his rule on the idea of Fortress Russia surrounded by enemies. Any hostile moves by the West help him to build this case and to prove that pro-Western opposition is wrong. But if instead we could bind Russia in the series of multilateral deals with its neighbors, including defense cooperation, we could on one side defeat the Russian hawks and on the other side create too big pie to lose for Russian elites. America has Monroe doctrine: we should try to remove the need for Russia to have one. Situation in Ukraine made this really hard to achieve, but not impossible.

Russia is a terrorist state and terrorists don’t ever make sense - their intension is murder, fear and instability. Something that Russia has been master of for centuries.

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