The British considered destroyers an acceptable risk (and likely losses). You know when you park ships in a sea theater going hot that you're going to lose some. This is just how war works, and nobody can universally prevent losses of materiel by reading British naval reports.

To say that the British came very close to losing marks you as a victim of that wartime propaganda. Sinking that single ship, the Sheffield, caused Argentina to lose 30% of their jets. At that rate, at most, they could have sunk two more ships if they were lucky. When you look at the basic realities of materiel exchange it becomes comical to ever suggest that the British were ever at a disadvantage, but here we are decades later and the idea that the British were ever so close to losing a water war against Argentina is still in people's heads. Quod erat demonstrandum!

If the British were prepared to lose some ships over something as economically and tactically insignificant as the Falkland Islands, what will Russia be willing to lose to not have a NATO supply line run straight up to a massive land border marching distance from Belgorod?

> to not have a NATO supply line run straight up to a massive land border marching distance from Belgorod?

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are NATO members. Russia already has that massive land border on the west, marching distance from Saint Petersburg.

I don't believe what Russian officials are saying about their justifications and goals is true. Russians are simply trying to expand their empire, like they were doing for centuries.

That's obviously not tactically equivalent to the Ukrainian border. The Lithuanian-Polish border between the gap of Russia and Belarus is a mere 100 kilometers wide, with two viable routes for rapid transit of large armor. It is a chokepoint that Russia has always been confident that it can successfully hold if it came to blows.

The Ukrainian border is over 2200 with dozens.

Maybe Russia is simply doing as you say, I have no comment on that and cannot peer into the inscrutable psyche of Russian elites to know for a fact that they would have still invaded had there been no NATO expansion, but the assertion that the Baltics are strategically equivalent to Ukraine in a NATO-Russia conflict is laughable nonsense.

I love Ukraine and its people and am heavily personally invested in the future of the country. My children are Ukrainian citizens. When people say things that are basely untrue it does not help promote quick conflict resolution or prevent further bloodshed. Circulating falsehoods doesn't help anyone.

They are comparable.

The most efficient shipping method is by sea, the fastest one is by air. The importance of that chokepoint is debatable. Flying distance to Moscow is different but not substantially so, 450 versus 600 km. There's nothing too important in Belgorod or Rostov, while Saint Petersburg is 2-nd most populated city, and has industries related to the military.

Historically, Russian governments also viewed these places as strategically important. They annexed these lands by force, twice: after the Great Northern War of 1700–1721, then once again after WW2.

Falkland is British territory. Every sovereign countries are prepared to fight to protect their territories, no matter how insignificant they seem to be. Kirin, Senkaku, Spratly.

Ukraine, on the other hand, doesn’t belong to Russia. If Russia invade Ukraine to prevent NATO at their border, they now have a much longer of that border to protect. They also have to spread their force to fight the insurgency within Ukraine. Finally, Finland now decide to join NATO because of the invasion, exposing Russia to a much bigger threat.

I doubt Russia didn’t see any of those scenarios before they decided to invade Ukraine, so no, it doesn’t make sense to do it because of NATO expansion. Rather, Russia consider Ukraine part of their influence sphere and can’t accept the fact that Ukraine’s people don’t want to be under their manipulation. Russia want to go back to their glory past. Not to mention the resource Ukraine would bring to the empire. NATO is just an excuse.

You're suggesting that the commander of the Falkland's task force was a victim of Argentine propaganda: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/apr/03/falklands.world

>At that rate, at most, they could have sunk two more ships if they were lucky

And how many aircraft carriers did the UK deploy to the Falklands? Two :) Just sinking one carrier would have required the withdrawal of the task force. As Admiral Woodward put it, "the Argentinian commanders failed inexplicably to realize that if they had hit either of our aircraft carriers, the British would have been finished."

> ...the Russians have had plenty of time to read the board of enquiry report on the sinking of HMS Sheffield.

At the start of the war, Russia knew that Ukraine had an anti-ship missile in development but not ready for deployment, so they didn't take precautions. Clearly, the Ukrainian missile developers put in some overtime. After the Moskva strike, Russia bombed the missile factory and moved their ships farther out.