Comments by "Alan Friesen" (@alanfriesen9837) on "What might happen if Russia does attack Ukraine?" video.

Putin hasn't said he intends to go to war. Western observers are extrapolating this intention from troop movements within Russia which are meant at least in part to intimidate the Ukraine. Putin's basically saying, "I'm not gonna kill you, but I can if I want to."
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When it comes to stoking internal disruptions, the Russians are in good company.
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Over the top, maybe?
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@joecater894 Actually—it kind of does work that way. Perhaps it shouldn't, but an awful lot of diplomacy, including war, is based on relative strength and proximity. What's right isn't so important as what's real, and Russia is strong, Ukraine is weak, Russia is paranoid about having NATO (an organization expressly designed to contain them) forces on its doorstep and the west is obtusely dismissive of Russia's anxiety. If these antipathies can't be managed diplomatically, then it ends up being played out on a battlefield with a defined winner who gets their way and a loser who gets nothing.
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The Russian army in Finland was very disorganized, being the first major conflict the Russians actively participated in since their revolution. There was an ongoing debate about whether soldiers in a people's army should even have rank. They got that sorted out by the time the Germans invaded. If Ukraine has the kind of winter that Poland had in '39, then that would clearly work in favor of the defenders. We'll have to see what the planet decides to dish out.
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@formworksucks I don't doubt it. The question is, what if it escalates?
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That's assuming that Russia will absorb eastern Ukraine. I think it more likely that it will set up a friendly state in eastern Ukraine so that they get their buffer after all.
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@mozaix1 China is focused on Taiwan and they will make no claim on Russian governed territory until well after the Taiwan situation is taken care of. I think Russia is more concerned about this issue eventually manifesting than China is and I think it's part of the reason the movement towards comradery between the two was such a delicate dance. The possibility of maintaining the buffer zone in the Ukraine at the cost of driving Finland into the arms of NATO is a huge potential risk for Russia, and it is probably something Putin is watching very closely. He's determined to make sure that there are no new NATO allies on his border, but Finland is much more stable than Ukraine ever was and it would be a lot harder to undermine that determination.
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@ricoanderson6626 It's not lost ego, it's proximity of a threat. The same logic that says that Russia building up troops on the Ukrainian border is a threatening move also says that bringing a state on Russia's border into NATO is a threatening move. Russia claiming that they should be able to do whatever they want with their military within their own territory is both valid and unacceptable. NATO claiming that a sovereign state like Ukraine should be able to join whatever alliance they can negotiate is also valid but unacceptable. There are no angels here. Both sides are championing their own interest's legitimate point and neither side is acknowledging the other's. Ukraine suffers as the gameboard between the two more powerful posturing opponents.
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@ricoanderson6626 Well, Russia's taking back Crimea was spurred on by a western-backed coup three months short of an election. Nobody's slate is clean here. As for media propaganda, it's neck deep crap on all sides.
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Go ahead and underestimate Russia. How could that go wrong?
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@Warp10x What happens when they get shot down?
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@Warp10x They're still big slow targets. And who are they going to bomb anyway? Are they going into Russia? They'll get shot down unless air superiority is established. That would take time to wear down the Russian air forces and anti-aircraft artillery.
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@Warp10x Yeah, if it ain't broke…
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Russia wouldn't likely absorb eastern Ukraine into its territory. They would probably establish a new country that, regardless of its eventual name, would be East Ukraine. They would make sure that a pro-Russian government ran the country. This would give them the buffer zone they seek.
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@karlparratt1730 Putin is many terrible things, but an idiot is not one of them. Of course his buffer zone would be NATO adjacent, that's the very nature of a buffer zone. And while having a western Ukrainian state in NATO would be bringing NATO closer to Russia, it wouldn't be as close as having the entire Ukraine in NATO, which is what he is determined to avoid. I'm sure that Putin is aware that former soviet client states despise Russia for a number of reasons. They feel like the Soviets manipulated them politically, oppressed them personally, and held them back economically, and on top of all that the people of these states bought into their own ethnic nationalism. Access to the west has provided most of them with lifestyles that appear more affluent than their Russian counterparts. It will be a long time before Russia appears favorably in the eyes of most Poles, Czechs and Hungarians. I don't think this is lost on Putin, but I don't think he feels that the hearts and minds of the peoples of the former Warsaw Pact are realistically capturable. I don't think he's going to waste resources on that approach. He's concentrating on political control, or at least political neutrality, of the former republics that currently lie on the borders of Russia because that is the extent of his reach and he knows it.
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