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Comment by throwaway85825

21 hours ago

Because the Kremlin wants europe to take an overt action to justify mobilization. There are many better assymetric ways for europe to retaliate.

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throwaway85825

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FeloniousHam  20 hours ago

I think it's to slowly increase offenses _that won't lead to military response_. The response to each individual incident, worse than the one before, kinetic action can be delayed because "this was only a little worse than the last one".

This compounds because NATO needs to act collectively to effectively act militarily (maybe Poland could go it alone).

  • DrScientist  3 hours ago

    It's European countries that are taking this strategy, any Russia sabotage is aimed at deterring this widening of the conflict - not to encourage it.

    Originally Europe didn't want to supply tanks, then it was only short range missiles, then it was longer range missiles as long as they weren't used to attack targets inside Russia - now it's actively supporting doing military strikes deep into Russia, and openly talking about European boots on the ground in Ukraine ( not that they likely didn't have deniable special forces there from the beginning ).

    Strategically it's not in Russia's interests at all to have a wider escalation right now - they have their hands full. Any Russia sabotage is a direct response to missiles and drones using Western technology blowing up warehouses and oil installations deep inside Russia - widening the war is not in their interest or their aim here - they are trying to deter that.

    There is the wider question of whether Russia's long term goal is to take back the old soviet states bit by bit in a way that doesn't trigger a full response - but I'd argue there is already a clear red line there - and that's the Nato border.

  • throwaway85825  20 hours ago

    Europe could just conscript migrants for the AFU but alas it's politically impossible. Would at least prevent the domestic anti NATO propaganda.

kadoban  10 hours ago

> Because the Kremlin wants europe to take an overt action to justify mobilization.

Do they? Why? They're already in a stalemate of a conflict, why would they want more fully-mobilized enemies?

  • adwn  7 hours ago

    Russia wants an excuse to justify mobilization in Russia, not in Europe.

    • spwa4  6 hours ago

      Really? Unless they are complete morons they realize something. If you take EU governments, any random country, as a general rule government expenditures go like this:

      35% pensions (usually also has some health care here)

      35% social security and health care

      15% education

      15% everything else, roads, bridges, government buildings, ... (army is in here @ maybe 5%)

      They're also drowning in debt, of the non-tiny, only Germany does better than the US. So they can't realistically borrow to finance this for 5 years. They're trying to cheat, and treat the EU like a separate country (meaning get investors to treat the EU as a separate state that is not on the hook for the debt of member countries but levies it's own taxes, then borrow against that, but EU countries are cheating, for example using money the EU borrowed for military purposes to fund general expenses like fixing roads)

      If the EU countries mobilize the army will go to 20-25% of government expenditures easily.

      That means either pensions or social security HAVE TO go down 15% (or 7.5% each). That will cause a revolt since a great many people can't survive like that. At that point there will be no choice for a lot of people but to tear the government down.

      That may be the plan of course.

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