Which countries is Russia a threat to?

[Wobblylegs1]

National Service is back on the agenda in Germany and France and on R4 Any Questions this weekend it seemed to be taken for granted that there is a ‘growing threat from Russia’.

Obviously, there is a threat to the old soviet bloc be because Putin sees them as ‘Russian’. Surely he wouldn’t be interested in expanding into Western Europe though? Russia already owns a huge sprawling chunk of land and struggles to sustain its population. Putin is bonkers, but I haven’t seen any suggestion that he has 1930s-style ‘conquer the whole world’ delusions? I don’t really understand what sort of a threat he poses and to what end? Anyone care to share their thoughts?

Now with the book included.

If Russia Wins by Carlo Masala

It’s so awful to contemplate. Idk how families are bearing it there. Just called up, horrendous. And of course NK and Ukrainians have little to no choice either.

I know a couple of Russians who go back (just nice people with normal jobs) but just in passing, not well enough to get close to how they feel about it all.

There is a fairly significant historical example of a mainland European nation the UK gave security guarantees to. That turned out to be utterly meaningless in the grand scheme of things, because when that nation's territory was then violated by an aggressor, the UK was left looking like the fool it was for issuing a "guarantee" it had no ability to actually back up.

The UK could do next to nothing about a Russian violation of Finnish sovereignty without significant assistance by the major NATO players, namely the US, and since I doubt that would be forthcoming at best you might be looking at Royal Navy activity in the Baltic sea and Arctic oceans (even then, reluctantly because of the presence of Russian subs and aircraft) and the occasional RAF flyover. Much of that would serve no purpose in any case beyond keeping the Russian navy quiet and their air force on the ground, but as we've seen in Ukraine, Russia is quite content to wage a campaign more or less foregoing those elements in any case so this alone would likely not be enough to actually deter Russian aggression in the first place.

I totally understand both Finland and Sweden's eagerness to join NATO, especially in the aftermath of Russia's aggression toward Ukraine, however, I don't believe the overall NATO response to Finland being invaded would be all that different to the approach to a Russian invasion of a Baltic State. Sucks, but when it comes down to it, nobody is risking WWIII over Finland. There would no doubt be terse words, sanctions, possibly even the sort of military aid we've seen sent to Ukraine, but Finland would likely be fighting the battle itself with little in the way of practical help from NATO.

Regardless though, I think it's a bit moot because Putin will now be well aware of the limitations of Russia's military if he wasn't so prior to 2022, and I don't believe there would be any real zeal in Russia for a potential conflict with Finland in the way there might be with the Baltics. An invasion of Latvia or Estonia would achieve much the same desired effect, and would likely be a far more palatable proposition than another misadventure in Karelia.

Finland is correct to be concerned and correct to be wary though. It's commonly accepted that Sweden's history of actively, visibly, and robustly policing it's own territorial integrity has long been enough to temper any Soviet/Russian ideas about expanding to the Northwest. There is no reason at all to relax that, and in fact, stepping it up as much as viable is precisely what NATO members need to be doing. The best way to approach the threat from Russia right now is to make it as unwelcoming as possible for Russia to contemplate any conventional military expansion of its territory in the first place, not wait for it to happen and then panic about it, because at that point it's already too late because nobody will risk conflagrating and escalating a conflict between nuclear-capable powers.

I dont think we can rely on the USA.

They've signalled pretty heavily that they are less invested in NATO and they have shown that there Pacific coast is the one they feel they need to focus defence on due to the threat from China.

They are less interested in the middle east too as they have fuel with fracking now.

Russia wants to secure their borders in the north European plain, ports around baltic as the sea warms up and the black sea. So those countries are at risk. Many are in nato and the eu so it draws us all into the fight..

Not many leaders (and certainly not the authoritarian type) care about body numbers.

According to the discussion on The Westminster Hour on Radio 4 on 7 December we are already at war with Russia. They have attacked our ocean bed cables and shone lasers into the eyes of RAF pilots. They have poisoned people here and are sending drones over. The contributors felt we were totally unprepared for what is ahead.

Yeah you're right, the uk would most likely weasel out of its responsibilities. I am very confident though that the other Nordics would help.

But the best defence is making it not worthwhile for Russia, definitely. That's why Finland never got rid of conscription, has always maintained defence plans and preparation training, and a big part of why they want to change the rail gauge to European standard now (currently Russian standard which is nice because wider but also gives Russia the opportunity to use railways in an invasion)

The US has never initially stood with the UK or Europe, both in WW1 and 2 they only came to help when they themselves were attacked, in both cases several years later.
WW1, German subs sinking US ships, WW2 Pearl Harbour.

Trump will never commit US troops to fight for Europe and he has set that agenda for future POTUS as well.

TBH he is more likely to support Russia, given his views on Ukraine being the instigator of war!

Art 5 is dead, who would go to war and trigger WW3 if Russian invaded Estonia?

UK has arms for 10 days of war, with a total failure to re supply what it has given to Ukraine.
We have a current plan to rearm inside the next 10 years...

Putin may well overwhelm Ukraine, who have equipment and men to last until the spring, with Europe incapable for supplying better and more munitions.

I dont know about that. If finlabd then sweden falls, russia can get to Scotland much easier than now. I think the uk woukd be more interested in this than Ukraine.

Agree - tho' the figures I quoted above only partly reflect Russia's population decline as it's such an ageing pop so it's not just running out of young soldiers it's also much fewer workers/tax payers/parents*

The figures for 2025 are only a rough estimate as it's unknown how many young people fled Russia at the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine

• why they steal Ukrainian children

They don't throw only young ones, Russia is sending forward ethnic minorities (like Buryats), criminals, HIV positives and people from occupied territory.

If Russia is allowed to conquer Ukraine , it would give them all Ukrainian men to be sent to the next attack.

Plus, there are troops from North Korea and Africa, some.as mercenaries, some misguided going to study there and being sent to the war.

Putin doesn't care about his people. Or better phrased, he has very narrow definition of his people.

Russia is a potential threat to any country that doesn’t agree with its current incumbents belief that the old soviet union should be reinstated, Churchill recognised Russias threat 80 years ago and, apart from a short period under the likes of Gorbachev, its remained a threat. Over the other side of the Atlantic we have another would be dictator who finds ways to remove, limit the potential of anyone, fellow republicans, included, who don’t agree with his vision. Anyone who thinks we only have three more years to put up with him is missing the point that he’s shaping the Republican Party in such a way that Vance is likely to be their next nominee for president, he comes over as potentially worse than Trump and could be in power for 8 years

Agree

Allegedly running out of ethnic minority youth from the east and conscription closing in on the more 'sophisticated' less malleable ethnic Russians in Moscow St Petersburg etc

It's all a horrible mess

I think Russia is a threat to nearly everywhere.

We are a small Island with only about 4 nuclear missiles that can be used (if they work). Russia has the largest land mass and the most missiles in the world. There is only one country that is assured of destruction in this scenario.

In a word Nuclear....
If he fired first the world would burn due to the Russian "dead hand" system. Basically if Putin fired a nuke at any western country the USA would retaliate by trying to take out all of Russia's key targets and personal, if achieved the dead hand system launches ALL 5000 odd of Russia's nukes.
It's like the biggest lose lose scenario and the reason the Americans or Europe dare not put boots on the ground in Ukraine... if Putin survives he launches nuclear armegedon... If he dies we get nuclear armegedon by default.
Our only hope is to deal with him and hope his successors is somebody who has enough of this, although Putin does have reason to distrust the west as both Clinton and Obama lied to him and dumped him over the expansion of NATO... thats what his Ukraine invasion is about really and why only the USA and Russia are in peace negotiation.

Evgeny Lebedev. His father was in KGB

I don’t mean to be rude, but do you actually keep up to speed with the news? Just last week Putin was telling Europe en masse that he was ready for war with us.

Conservatives and Reform are up to their eyeballs in Russian money.

Reform’s Nathan Gill, arrested and sentenced to 10 years, is just the tip of the iceberg.

There’s great podcast by Carole Cadwalladr on this topic “Sergei and the Westminster spy ring”

Russia don't need to physically invade countries to cause huge disruption. There's increasing evidence that Putin is focusing on infrastructure disruption (remember that power cut in Spain? The fire at Heathrow?) and using social media to splinter society in countries around the world (shifting the Overton window on racism and general anti-social views).

Of course he'd like to invade, but he knows he'd just be bombed. So he's using other methods.

I do think the military are very worried about his intentions though - there's been a LOT of Russian planes and boats scouting around/over the edges of EU and UK borders recently.

Thanks... that's interesting. Will have to have a listen!

On this agree 100%

But the UK has enough missiles to destroy everything good about Russia.

1 Trident missile has enough multiple warheads to destroy several v large population centres,

1 Submarine could deploy 8 such missiles, in war that could be 16, they d have time to re arm if conflict looked likely, which it isn't atm.

Then there are the French weapons.

But Putin doesn't want to die in a nuclear firestorm or destroy his homeland, he will seek to undermine Europe in other ways, not least in Elections.

He will be cheering if Reform win here or RN in France, as will Trump.

Themselves, mostly. Why they want to continue killing and wasting the lives of their young on war...things must be really bad at home if Putin is having to unite the country behind him with the threat of a global war.

Loads on here too - did anyone else see "Carol" a couple of weeks ago? We all know most oddball threads on here are bots or men from goodness knows where. I did start to wonder how much a job posting on MN would get me though, as I think I might have the skillz.

X revealing the locations of their users was interesting, especially the so called patriotic verified accounts.