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Comment by andrejguran | Hacker News Reader

ofc you can call army troops citizens as well. But then going back to your question if they're prepared for it, well I hope so because that's the army's job to be prepared. But I don't think you original question whether citizens are prepared was aiming only at "army citizens" but regular citizens. And for this I don't see why would regular citizens be conscripted. Currently Ukraine is able to hold russia with limited resources from the west. We have actually the opposite problem if NATO would have a full scale war with russia NATO would win too fast which is problem because it would be an existential crisis for russia and they'd have to use nuclear weapons. So no, regular citizens of NATO countries will very unlikely be conscripted for war with russia as NATO is slowly winning without a single soldier in battle.

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so you do think that time will come for professional nato soldiers to come to ukraine to fight russia ?

Getting some really strong OSINT probe vibes here.

But yes, it's possible that NATO forces could enter the fight. There are already large quantities of NATO troops in Poland, Estonia, etc. Entire US, British, French, etc. brigades on standby.

This isn't new -- we've played these games for damn near 50 years of Cold War. Most of the leaders of NATO, to include Putin and Biden, were Cold Warriors and grew up during that era. They know the game and what's at stake.

But that means lots of staredowns, not necessarily a lot of fighting. Ukraine isn't NATO -- hell, 50 years ago UKR was USSR, and would have been shooting at NATO forces -- and if they need to be sacrificed to collapse the Russian government then so be it. Welcome to Realpolitik.

To that end NATO will prop them up as much as needed to continue grinding down Russian military and economic forces. I believe they will let UKR collapse and be taken over instead of sending troops; only if NATO forces are attacked directly, or maybe if nukes are involved, will NATO do anything more than it is now. Furthermore, it's possible that Ukraine actually wins -- they appear to be absorbing, at high cost mind you, the renewed Russian offensive, and may soon be able to hit back with their own...

no I don't. And I was trying to explain why I don't think so as it would escalate the conflict possibly to a nuclear one as NATO entering Ukraine would cause russia to lose very quickly

see the problem i have with this is the constant pushing of boundaries. first it was small defensive weapons. then small offensive weapons. then large defensive weapons. then large offensive weapons. now its fighter jets. whats next?

at the same time a narative is being developed in all the major media that the freedom of europe and west depends on ukranian victory. if thats the case, whats the next logical conclusion if ukraine actually begins to lose the war? to me this smells of preparation of the general population for a (much) larger war

I disagree because russia showed it's very weak militarily. So weak that it caught by surprise everyone. Again we have the opposite problem and that's for Ukraine not winning too fast and that's why NATO is suppling weapons very carefully and slowly. You said that we're pushing boundaries but I see it as pushing boundaries centimeter by centimeter while being miles away from what you call a larger war. So in conclusion there won't be much larger war simply because there is no larger enemy.

Constant pushing of boundaries is exactly what the Russians do: first they annex Crimea (no or very limited response from the West), then they separate Donbas (no response from the West), then they finally attack Ukraine proper. Should the West have watched this with arms folded in your opinion?

We are very far from average Joe being sent to the Russian front. Partly because there is a professional army that will be involved before that, but more likely it will not, in order to avoid nuclear conflict. I think you should worry more about that than the general population being sent to Ukraine.

We wanted to send help from day one but we were afraid because Putin in its famous speech when announcing the war threatened using nuclear bombs against any country that would help Ukraine. So we had to start small.

The alternative is that we are afraid, we do nothing, and once Putin finishes off with Ukraine, he is ready to invade the ex-Eastern bloc countries, and then go further West. Because if everybody is afraid, who is going to stop him?

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