Meanwhile, (NATO Secretary General Mark) Rutte delivers a very stark warning in the opening lines of his speech in Berlin as he says:
“I’m here today to tell you where Nato stands and what we must do to stop a war before it starts. And to do that, we need to be crystal clear about the threat: we are Russia’s next target, and we are already in harm’s way.”
He says that while the decision to accelerate defence spending at Nato’s Hague summit earlier this year was welcome, “this is not a time for self-congratulation.”
“I fear that too many are quietly complacent. Too many don’t feel the urgency. And too many believe that time is on our side. It is not. The time for action is now. Allied defence spending and production must rise rapidly. Our armed forces must have what they need to keep us safe.”
Rutte says that Russia “has become even more brazen, reckless and ruthless towards Nato and towards Ukraine.”
Yeah, the country that’s taken 3 years to capture like 200 miles of land from a former SSR riddled with corruption, 8 years into a civil war, is coming for Germany. Watch out, Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba might attack from the other sides. You’re basically surrounded.
Germany is far worse prepared than Ukraine was. And it doesn’t have to be Germany first. There are lots of small countries in Europe that can be taken in the build up to Germany if NATO is not swift and forceful in its response.
It’s not like they will roll in with their tanks. They are already attacking with cyber attacks and sabotage on infrastructure as well as drones. And most importantly they sow social unrest with the goal of undermining democracy and bring into power pro Russian parties like AfD and BSW.
They could roll in with tanks, if enough pro-Russian parties came into power in the EU. The Baltic countries are not very big. Creating a situation where an Article 5 is called by a small country, but not answered, would be the ideal result.
Let’s also not forget that Putin has only done a very limited amount of mobilization so far.
you good? Russia’s all widows
They’re headed in that direction, but not yet. Their pop is 143 mil roughly, and the Ukrainian estimates are a little over 1 mil Russian casualties last I heard.