That would be the single dumbest thing Putin could do right now.
Poland will have tanks in Moscow inside a month of that happening.
this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2025
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They won't attack Poland. It'll be like Estonia, Lithuania or Latvia.
No doubt some excuse about Kaliningrad will be trotted out. They'll end up losing that.
USA really needs to get their shit together. I am honestly scared of an alliance between russia and the US. It might seem impossible now, but with disinformation and fox news, everything is possible.
And EU needs to stop the bully once and for all. Help Ukraine and let's send Russia back to the dark ages.
Russia will fuck with the EU.
EU will react with: "Stop it!".
A sternly written letter to Putin.
What makes you think Orban will allow even a letter?
Germany will give him a ton of money.
The world would improve significantly without Putin. Just sayin'...
The TACO puppet in the US wouldn't be nearly as bold if he didn't have a Russian fist up his ass, for one.
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So, say that Russia tests article 5. This has one of two possible outcomes.
- Article 5 is not honoured which is "yay for Russia" though not very useful for them since militarily they're stuck in a self-dug pit in Ukraine so don't actually have the excess military power for handling anything more than a small nation like Montenegro. Meanwhile NATO is hardly going to stop supporting Ukraine (and in fact NATO nations might double up on that support if they feel that NATO doesn't work anymore as strategically it's the best way to militarily bleed Russia and make it less dangerous)
- Article 5 is honoured. At which point, who knows how far NATO nations will go in crushing Russia to make sure an attack on a NATO nation doesn't happen ever again. At the very least Russia would be kicked out of Ukraine pretty quickly and lose pretty much all its air and naval assets.
My point is that this is a MASSIVE risk for Russia if they are wrong, with little concrete and currently achievable upsides if they are indeed right, mainly because they're stuck and bleeding in Ukraine and a logical fallback plan for European nations if NATO turns out to be toothless is to increase support of Ukraine even more, and specifically for the attacked nation it might even make sense to become a military ally of Ukraine since that's an ongoing fight in somebody else's territory.
So to me this sounds like bullshit or this "attack" Kahl is talking about is more of the same which they have already been doing: cyberwar, cutting submarine cables, financing extremist parties. social media disinfo and so on.
It sounds like what most (including me) have said before the conflict in Ukraine. I would personnaly not repeat that mistake and take the words of the BND head very seriously.
Putin will do a small attack that involves plausible deniability or doesn't trigger an Article 5 response, then push that a little more later on. He might even deny that it was Russia or he might even use foreign troops to muddy the attack. He is testing NATO.
Still, what exactly does a game of ever increasing "poke the bear" achieve, given the massive risk that the bear gets angry and properly fucks them up?
Russia getting away with it ... until they don't ... is a pretty likely outcome, but the point were they stop getting away with it is almost certainly at or short of territorial invasion, which means that all their getting away with it until reaching that point will have delivered them no concrete gains - it would all be provocation for the sake of provocation until the moment they get mauled.
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If Russia goes for the Baltic countries, it's possible that they have a chance. They have tiny militaries and really depend on Nato.
However, given the current status of the Union, I'm not sure I would be completely confident on Nato. Committing would be politically risky for any politician in the current context.
So while I hope Both unions stand strong (the EU also has a common defence clause), I'm not super confident. Because politicians are extremely short-sighted. And short-sightedness is pretty much what defines our species (that and greed, and stupidity).
And to add upon that, Russia (or more precisely the Russian Federation) has been attacking us for ten years now, maybe more. Article 5 ought to have been invoked before. They should have been dismantled by force years ago. I've said it before, but I'm saying it again: The Russian Federation has to be broken up into its member states, with Russia possibly getting a special treatment. They have to get a government that's under international surveilance for at least 20 years.
I really don't see Russia having a chance against us (Finland), in any short term conflict. We're currently closing in to 900 000 troops in reserve.
Other Baltic countries withdrew from the Ottawa deal too, which means mines, mines, mines.
If the Russians can't breach Ukraine, they sure as hell won't breach the Baltics while simultaneously fighting Ukraine.
Edit: I just realized we aren't considered Baltic these days, even though we were referred as such historically (ww1&2 times).
I was really thinking more of Estonia, Lituania and Latvia. That's what people usually mean by Baltic countries. Finland has already shown Russia that it's probably not a good idea to invade. And I think both the Finns and the Russians haven't forgotten each other.
I think your breakdown is spot on. It makes no sense for Russia to do this.
One of the less comfortable aspects of supporting Ukraine is that we are supporting the military-industrial complex as a necessary consequence. To be clear, helping a nation fight off an invader is one of the better things NATO has done. However, it can't be disentangled from all the money the MIL is getting.
Take it one step further, and US withdrawal from NATO (official or otherwise) necessitates the EU strengthening its own MIL. Which means that within a generation, they're likely to have the same overreaching MIL influence on their politics that the US does.
I think this statement should be seen in that context. The existing MIL in the EU sees a big opportunity, and is taking notes from their US counterpart.
I honestly don't know what to do about that. Withdrawal of support to Ukraine is not an option, and if the US is backing off, the EU needs to step up. But that gives strength to an industry that doesn't deserve a higher position at the table than they already have. Putin lost the war in many ways the day he invaded, but forcing the EU's actions might be one last big fuck you while he jumps into his grave.
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More like, to test whether the US will follow article 5.
Isn't the answer to that ~~quiet~~ quite clear today? It's a no, they wouldn't.
Which is why Europe needs to coordinate on a joint military plan YESTERDAY. EU is capable of keeping Russia at bay on its own, no doubt about it, but they need to get smart about it as soon as possible because we only have a small window of time to pre-empt this.
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well, don't count on the US for help, thats for sure.
Unless nato countries band together and go full force to stop whatever comes their way though, they are in huge amounts of danger. It won't just be Russia coming for them. It will be China, Iran, North Korea, and every other Fascio-dictatorship out there. Possibly even the US, at that point.
I said it before trump got elected in 2016 and no one listened to me. If NATO countries wanted to help themselves, they would have done a lot more to help the US keep its elections legitimate. Instead they did practically nothing.
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So I guess GPS jamming, Internet cable cutting, spreading misinformation, meddling with elections, Olympic sabotage, gas pipeline sabotage, cyberattacks, etc. etc. don't count?
I think the original article means more of this rather than land invasion. Russia will poke and prod to create chaos and continue destabilize europe.
The was uncertainty has been a huge blow to eastern europe's economy and it'll continue to be so. Economically weak population is more succeptible to proganda so it's easy to see how Russia doesn't need full invasion to hurt eastern europe bad to increase their influence there.
The absence of proper reaction to those would certainly explain why Russia would think that NATO's Article 5 would not be honored in case of a more overt Russian attack on a NATO nation.
They definitely count as actions designed to test the limits of Article 5.
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This will probably happen around the same time Israel and Iran escalates. I mean, that is when I would do it.
Could China/Taiwan happen around the same time
It's almost like half the World is going to War
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Be ready. Respond overwhelmingly and immediately
The Russians have once again used ballistic missiles from North Korea. We are also tracking evidence that Russian-Iranian drone technologies have spread to North Korea. This is extremely dangerous both for Europe and for East and Southeast Asia. The longer this war continues on our territory, the more warfare technologies evolve, and the greater the threat will be to everyone. This must be addressed now – not when thousands of upgraded “Shahed” drones and ballistic missiles begin to threaten Seoul and Tokyo.
Zelenskiy.
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And by all means, NATo should then remind Russia what article 5 really means. Do not only repel that attack, wipe them out, follow the retreat back into Russia, take a large swaths of Russian territory away as punishment
Fuck Putin
Rush Moscow.
Arrest the Oligarchs, install a new Democratic government, undergo a process of cultural change like Denazification but for Russia's imperialism.
Change Russia for the better.
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The west has too little spine, from Biden's cautiousness to Germany's gormlessness in daling with Russia. They have been attacking. They are committing war crimes. They have sanctioned murders on NATO territory. Attacked supply chains within NATO countries.
Where has real leadership gone.
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Didn't we laugh at how bad the Russian army is for years? Now they want to attack Germany?! Schroedingers Russia is always on the brink of collaps and invading Europe. At least one of these takes must be ... propaganda?
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