While pondering the arguments, I'm not going to dwell on the difference in logic between Russia's viewpoint of Ukraine's "breakaway" from the former Soviet club and attempting to join it's perceived enemies causing an effort to "un-change" the senecio.

What we currently have is a situation where Russia is conducting, not only a "hot" war in Ukraine, but also a "hybrid" war against Europe and the US. Europe is currently funding the Ukraine war which is continuing to grind up Russia's ability to militarily threaten Europe in thee future. This is costing Europe money, but not soldiers. Russia has been responding by "hybrid" attacks. Hybrid seems to be the definition of attacks which are "deniable" by Russia and too small to elicited a full military counter response. Like boiling a frog, as Europe's response to the war grows, so do Russia's hybrid attacks.

The scenario is further complicated by the US's growing ambiguity towards NATO and the EU (not to mention the close relationship between the current US administration and its two "volunteer negotiators" whose job seems to bed to look for ways that their boss and their relatives can make a buck).

This situation is counter-balanced by the increasing debt of Ukraine's assorted allies as they also address building up their own militaries in the face of shrinking populations. Europe has an obvious demographic problem in that it needs immigrants, but Russia's hybrid attacks include social engineering designed to reenforce "tribalism" which, in turn, encourages anti-government aggression in Europe (and the US for that matter). (Tangent: While in Europe, there is an argument that immigrants are not from the same ethnic group as the indignant - they are not French, Norwegian nor German - in the US, other than the "First Nations", there is no particular ethnic group, so the myth of the "Red-blooded American" has had to be created, and this has complicated the local and national politics of the nation. In various guises, it has adopted race and religion as substitutes for long-term ethnically cohesive tribes).

Anyhow, Russia keeps escalating the hybrid attacks with the assumption that Europe (writ-large) will not retaliate because of their concern about being pulled into what will rapidly become a World War (probably, under the current situation) without the us to support them and even potentially acting in support of Russia. considering that many European military systems require us support of one sort or another, the ambiguous stance off the US throws a wet towel on all thoughts of active direct retaliation against Russia.

Jeff