The Russians are very concerned about the Baltics and Poland trying something at Kaliningrad where NATO has been conducting very pugnacious 'invasion exercises' for well over a decade. Ukraine is neither a real tank war or a manoeuvre threat, the Russians are 'demilitarising' the place as they say; grinding the army down even though the forces consist largely of conscripted - often forcibly - East Ukrainians. They need to be able to have T-72s and similar to quickly get into Kaliningrad.
NATO is a significant threat and has been prowling around Belarus & Kaliningrad for some time, that's where Russia sees the real threat although the peacekeepers in Moldova are extremely exposed. Regime change efforts are underway in Georgia again and Russia is also worried that there may be fighting there again, especially as how they stupidly fell into the trap of trying the same 'display of force' strategy in Ukraine as they did in Georgia and NATO watched and learned. Really, it was gobsmackingly dumb anyway because it got a bunch of kids and Chechens killed in Chechnya when Yeltsin did it. You'd think they'd avoid doing anything Yeltsin did.
|