I will reiterate. Baltic states, Poland, Ukraine, Georgia, are constantly harassed and reminded that Russia doesn't really see them as sovereign states. They fly bombers into their airspaces (oops), deploys military manoeuvres at their borders, rambles about aiming their nukes at the capital cities. It actually invaded Ukraine for the second time in a decade! And even as this is all going on, Russia happily says, "hey Latvia, or Finland, you guys better stand to attention or you are next".

Refugees on the border suddenly seems like a nice problem to have.

Is there a citation for the threat of invasion apart from unhinged Russian TV commentators?

For example, the most hawkish interview with Dugin (Pozner is the interviewer) is from 2014. The interview is in Russian and Dugin is clearly enraged about the Maidan events, so he is more straightforward than in English interviews.

If the English subtitles are correct, Pozner explicitly asks which countries should be part of the "Greater Russia". Dugin unambiguously excludes the Baltic states, Poland and Finland.

He wanted the eastern Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan in a Eurasian union.

So if even the hawk who is always cited as an expansionist does not want Latvia/Finland/Poland, who does?

The U.S. does military manoeuvres and close fly-by missions in the South China sea.

The people in charge in Russia grew up during the cold war and believe that NATO is a threat. It does not matter to them what people on Twitter who were born in 2000 think.

I don't think either that NATO is a threat in the case of Russia (unlike for Kosovo, Iraq, ...), but they don't care. If someone is in the business of foreign policy, he has to take the opponent's thoughts into account.

Russia's unlimited expansionism is a narrative that is supposed to obfuscate the mistakes that foreign policy has made since 2008.

> I don't think either that NATO is a threat in the case of Russia (unlike for Kosovo

You think NATO is a threat to Kosovo?

Of all places, TIL from FIFA that the Kremlin line probably is that Kosovo is part of Serbia, which would make gp semantically consist.

If that is the case: «ты всё Россию прославляешь; а лучше б мусор выносил!»

> They fly bombers into their airspaces (oops), deploys military manoeuvres at their borders, rambles about aiming their nukes at the capital cities.

Your argument would be valid, if this was something exclusive to Russia, and not a common mutual thing between Russia and NATO. NATO bombers just as well fly into Russian airspace, NATO deploys military manoeuvres at Russian borders, and NATO states politicians are just as keen to ramble about nukes as anyone else.

Yes I forget. Russia is the bullied one here. And is constantly attacked by NATO, in Georgia, Ukraine... Seriously poor Russia for being so unfairly treated.

Even now, if only those pesky Ukrainians would stop shooting back at them, peace could be introduced overnight.

> in Georgia

Russian peacekeeping corps WAS attacked in Georgia. The EU fact-finding mission, had blamed Saakashvili:

https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/new-report-on-rus...

https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-shattered-dream...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/30/georgia-attack...

It's insane how this truth has been erased in the last 14 years, despite being publicly available and easily goolable. This wiki article should provide a good enough context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian%E2%80%93Ossetian_conf...

But hey, why bother with studying facts when you can study propaganda memes, am I right?

Russia has, in my lifetime, conducted no fewer than five invasions, all of which could be fairly characterized as driven by naked territorial aggression ("this land deserves to be ours"). In the same time, the US has invaded three times, none of which could be characterized as naked territorial aggression, even if you squint at it really, really hard.

I don't see how is this possible, are you counting each operation as a separate "invasion" so you get two invasions in Ukraine (2014 and in 2022) for Russia, then I imagine Syria and Georgia? But what is fifth - is it Transnistria/Abkhazia/Ossetia in 1990s? Then the US had 20+ invasions in the same sense (Yugoslavia, multiple ops in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and various countries in Africa) over your lifetime.

Russia invaded Ukraine twice (once in 2014, once this year), Chechnya twice (1994 and 1999), and Georgia once (in 2008).

Chechnya is a region of Russia and always has been, how can Russia invade itself? And let's say Chechnya is some kind of independent country that Russia really invaded, in 1994. So you had been born before 1994 and only recall three US invasions since then???

Chechnya, apparently, deserves to be part of Russia.

> Chechnya twice (1994 and 1999)

In 1994 Chechnya was legally a part of Russia. By that principle, are you considering that Ukraine had invaded Donetsk? Not trolling, just wondering if it is a point of principle or doublethink.

In 1999 Chechnya had invaded Russian Dagestan, which triggered a military response - exactly how does this consitute as "Russia invaded"?

> Georgia once (in 2008)

Georgia attacked Russian peacekeeping corps in 2008:

https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/new-report-on-rus...

https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-shattered-dream...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/30/georgia-attack...

I am really puzzled by how people are so reinforced in their ignorance, despite facts being easily available for anyone who cares to spend 5 minutes to learn something.

It is safe to assume that they just never even heard of the half of those US military actions. Ironically, things like "Nothing happened in Tiananmen Square on 4 June 1989" (nothing happened in Yugoslavia, nothing happened in Yemen, nothing happened in Syria, nothing happened in Somalia) are extremely common in Western info-bubble.

> In the same time, the US has invaded three times

Like at least four, and if we use the same counting logic you did for Russia, it would be at least 20.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NATO_operations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_mili...

> naked territorial aggression

Well, that depends on what you consider to be worse: pushing neo-colonial policies by installing puppet governments through war and staged coups on the other part of the world, or resolving local conflicts created by dissolution of the SU along the administrative (instead of historical, ethnical, or national) borders, while granting citizenships, providing social infrastructure, or at least allowing states to gain sovereignty (if Kosovo can be independent under UN's self-determination principle, why can't Ossetia, who had been at odds with Georgia for ages and was only territorially related to it, because at some point the Soviet Union decided that budgeting that way is easier?)

Besides, considering the US geography, it's kinda hard for it to have territorial disputes, even if it really wanted to. On the other hand, you can ask Mexicans what they think of US law enforcement openly operating in Mexico.

>NATO bombers just as well fly into Russian airspace

What's the source on that claim?

>I doubt that countries bordering Russia are keen to have failed chaotic states with economic problems on their borders.

As opposed to a single, stronger failed state with economic problems?

I'm about 200km from the russian border right now. Having those a*holes go down would be definitely a cause for celebration.

The in-fighting that will occur when the current government collapses will weaken them further.

The Ukraine war has strengthened NATO and shown the (quite surprising!) unity of Europe to the point that people here just aren't afraid any more.

Refugees are easier to handle than tanks.

> I doubt that countries bordering Russia are keen to have failed chaotic states with economic problems on their borders.

You're somehow ignoring that countries bordering Russia have already a failed chaotic state with economic problems on their border which also is systematically threatening with invasion, destruction, and genocide.

There are very good reasons why Baltic states are the highest per-capita providers of military and economic support to Ukraine.

There's no love for Russians in any of these countries; they'll just deport any refugees.

The Baltics probably would, but Georgia is literally swamped with Russian émigrés right now. By the Georgian official data, more than 100k Russians arrived in 2022 alone, which is 2-3% of the country's population.

Lithuania and Poland have been coordinating to keep the migrants coming in via Belarus out of their countries, although these are Middle Easterners and Africans. And all of the Baltics have placed a travel ban on Russians. I don't see them caring about the misfortune of Russians in such a scenario.