especially once the Patriot system, which Ukrainians are now trained to use, is fully in place. Putin, of course, thinks he's going to use troops being trained in Belarus to redo Garasimov's master plan of a 3 pronged surprise attack, only this time with better support. Russia lacks the heavy equipment to provide such support and lacks the arms and personnel to carry out the plan and I think Lukashenko knows that if he sends his army off to die for Putin's folly, his goose is totally cooked. There was a hell of a lot of resistance going on in Belarus last March and it would be multiplied by a thousand or so if he tried to play into Putin's delusions.
The Russian military seems to be in self preservation mode. The only serious fighting that is going on is around the Bakhmut area small villages changing hands along with a few hills and fields and Russian death totals sky high, but those are Wagnerite troops, most of them convicts. The real military seems to be hanging back for now, losses of things like tanks and artillery pieces are down.
Because of this self preservation attitude, I think if Putin tries to order them to lob nukes, Putin is out the nearest window.
So his threats toward Ukraine are largely empty ones. The Patriot system is designed to stop the supersonic missiles like the one that hit the Dnipro apartment tower. There is just nothing else he can do at this point. He's done, he just doesn't know it yet.
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