He's already gotten the Black Sea ports from the Ukraine, he doesn't need to rush those. The Ukrainian government is still too weak, and not really a threat to him right now, unlike other NATO countries. Poland is too dangerous to threaten right now - not only is there still a large U.S. presence there that would take at least two years to remove - no matter what his puppet might order U.S. Generals and Admirals to do - there's also the threat of German forces able to prepare and counter far more quickly than the Russian army can take Poland. He needs to play the long game to take Poland, unless he decides to fuck everything and use Nukes. In that scenario, he's going to basically burn his own country into the Stone Age along with the rest of the world, and I don't think he's that Messianicaly delusional that he wants to do that.
He's channeling Ceaser, not Jim Jones.
Since he's already playing at war games with Norway and Sweden for the Northern Passage, I'm thinking he feels the need to be able to more quickly threaten them from the Baltic - basically, at their front door - in order to be the intimidation factor he wants to be.
My take - this is his attempt at empire building on the shoestring that is the raped Russian economy. He's playing Mobster Risk against the rest of the world, planning his country's real estate acquisitions carefully for the maximum benefit and the least cost to his own bank account. Think like a Mob Boss, and you can understand everything he's been doing to get Russia to where it is now.
His strategic physical targets in Europe at this point are Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Frankly, Erdogan is an ally in spirit for him, and most of the Balkans are still too politically unstable to stop his infrastructure building. It's about the Oil, Gas - and shipping. All the things that make Russia money.
Russia's real enemy is, and always has been, China. The West is a secondary consideration; a technology and economic resource for Russia to leverage.
Every other Western country can be managed through cyber disruption - either giving him time while that government deals with the social or economic disruption that is being caused, or bringing down a relatively stable government and putting in puppets.
Haele
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