Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Well...

You've got to be pretty naive (or perhaps wilfully ignorant) to think Nato are not already in this fight.

Oh they are, and not just NATO. There are also almost certainly spooks on the ground too. It's the chance of a generation for weapons and tactical people.

Nato general secretary Jens Stoltenberg basically admitted as much several months ago, when he stated that a Russian victory in Ukraine would be "a defeat for us all"... and as far as most Russians are concerned, this is a war against the west not just Ukraine.

Jens was and remains right. Russian's concerns are what putin has groomed them to be concerned about, to take away from many issues and questions on the home front, issues that have been building for some time.

And if it is a war against the "west", then Russia will lose. It already has. Even if they took all of Ukraine tomorrow. Never mind that thousands of Russians have been killed or maimed in pursuit of this folly. Never mind that no actual NATO forces are coming home in body bags. Result for NATO.

They're almost entirely isolated from Western finance. You know the bit that actually counts? Always follow the money. Their access to shipping, aeronatics, insurance, leasing has fallen to a trickle, their exports have fallen off a cliff, their "friends" China and India are getting firesale prices for the oil they can ship and the same "friends" followed the evil west in areas like aviation and shipping. And their previously lucrative international arms sales? Dead as a dodo. Why would anyone want to buy Russian kit now? When such a "strong" nation has to go running to places like Iran and North Korea for kit, well..

Their extremely lucrative cashflow of energy sales to the EU has pretty much dried up and that won't be restarted for the foreseeable future. Well the extremely lucrative cashflow to a tiny minority of obsenely wealthy elite. Anything the average Russian gets are scraps from that table and they tend to fall in the west of Russia. And that's gone now. 40 years of it. Doh!

The real question is, why has such a powerful alliance of nations struggled so badly for almost an entire year now to defeat one nation - and a nation that you characterize as a "busted flush"?? Surely all of this enormous expenditure of high spec western weaponry, should have already made mince meat of such a weak nation? But yet here we are...

Because contrary to the Russian spin you seem so eager to swallow like Mother Russia's milk, the "powerful alliance of nations" is expending a tiny fraction of their resources to drip feed Ukraine weapons, many of which are hand me downs, most of which aren't fully integrated like they would be in an actual NATO force. NATO don't want to go in directly. I strongly suspect even if Russia had no nuclear weapons, they'd still not physically go in. Why should they? They're breaking the back of Russian forces and Russia herself for the bargain of the century. A bargain that putin handed them on a silver platter. He had so many options and chose the stupid one.

And be under no illusions; if NATO actually went in as a force Russia would be routed quicker than a Kremlin spin doctor could paint it as a tactic. Even a single US carrier group sailing into the Black Sea would bugger them badly. If NATO armoured divisons streamed in from the west? Never mind NATO's air power? In essence Russia would have to go nuclear to try and stop it.

Actually I am not in favour of this banning stuff, just because they're on the other side. I say play on. It's very instructive on how so many think.