Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Completely agree with you both.

The big problem here is what happens next. Putin is not a man who is prepared to lose face with the West, and I fear that unless he gets some kind of major concession(s) regarding his demands then an invasion of some sort is inevitable - as he wont want to additionally lose face with his own military. He always has to appear outwardly as the strong man.

False flag is definitely a heavy odds on favourite in this race.

Plenty to show, you just don't acknowledge it, as hard a concept it is to grasp for you, you have given us all plenty of evidence of your garbage in this thread already.

NATO already said there are fast track options available for Sweden and Finland, if they so please...

This was from 2 or 3 weeks back when Russia had their amphibious assault brigade loitering off Gotland.

Sweden already said they would prefer to stay neutral, but if any invasion threats came they would consider it.

Finland said they were in discussions, but don't comment on their defence posture publicly.

By that same logic, why does the US, the EU or NATO get to dictate where Russia bases its troops inside Russia? That is purely an internal matter for Russia, right?

em, no it doesn't.

"How dare he insinuate the US/UK governments might lie to manufacture a justification for war!"

That is the real ominous shadow behind all this; how dare we insinuate NATO would use this situation to do some global engineering.

According to your personal opinion it won't happen.

Likewise, according to my personal subjective opinion Russia aren't going to try it either. That doesn't mean it won't happen. Regardless of it happening or not, it's a smart move by the US to openly pre-empt such a scenario.

Putin is escalating the situation in order to get concessions. If you were e.g. the leader of the UK, how would you respond to these types of aggressive moves from Moscow? (in a way that wouldn't lose you your job the next day)

I think it's pretty telling that nobody inside Russian believes an invasion of Ukraine is imminent. Prior to the invasion of Crimea there was wall to wall coverage on Russian state TV stoking up fears of the Maidan revolution and talking about the danger to the Russian speaking populations in Crimea and the east of the country. That is not the case now. Even critics of Putin such as Gary Kasparov and Alexei Navalany think the massing of troops on the border and the demands to NATO are just a bluff by Putin in order to get the international spotlight and try and win some concessions.

This is an interesting DW interview with a Russian foreign policy expert, based in Moscow who also believes that there will be no invasion.

I can't see how Putin could invade if it'd be a shock to most Russians. I've been weighing it up for the past few weeks but now I'd be very surprised if it happened. I'm not quite sure how Putin pulls back and saves face given the demands he made to NATO but I'm sure he'll figure something out and it's not as if he has to worry about a critical media at home.

Well the Brits themselves called it a Heavy British military presence.

So now you don't trust what they say?

Was in the anti-war movement yonks back, marched against the Iraq war. I noticed there were more than a few who didn't give one toss about any Iraqi's killed by Saddam. It was partisan to them, they had to "pick a side", it wasn't possible to criticise all participants proportionally.

There are a lot of nasty conflicts in the world, and there are these individuals who only selectively "care" about certain sides to certain conflicts because the perceived hypocrisy "annoys" them more than the sum total of suffering on all sides. As I've mentioned before it's the new Godwin in these threads.

What's with personalizing the attack?

You conveniently omit that the post WW2 peace in Europe was maintained by a stand off between the 2 largest powers. Since then one of them imploded, but not entirely. The opportunity was there for US and NATO to act responsibly but instead they doubled down growing their power, undermined the UN and the 'rules based order' with military adventurisms here and there, and now have their finger prints all over the messy situation in Georgia and Ukraine.

The implosion of the USSR and subsequent US hegemony has created an unstable world.

No. As mentioned I protested the war.