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Yes, with the operative word being mobilization

Russia would need to conscript soldiers, which they tried to do a few years ago to disastrous results -- public pushback forced them to walk it back

That's why they want NATO involved, it allows them to say mobilization is needed because NATO is threatening the homeland

It's a balancing act. They want to provoke NATO enough to sell the story of NATO threatening the homeland, but not so much that Russia actually has significant fighting against MATO

Putin feels he needs a military victory, and is taking increasingly large gambles to get it

Watch closely, because the US is following a similar path, just a few years behind

Putin has to keep doubling down or he is done for.

Here’s the thing: Putin genuinely believes the West is hedonistic and degenerate. His view, which is enforced by the people around him, is that we will avoid war at all costs.

Putin’s logic therefore is that he doesn’t actually have to defeat NATO on the battlefield, but that he simply needs to scare and intimidate us enough for us to break cohesion and back down.

In other words, with every single month that goes by without the EU withdrawing their support, Putin will be tempted to escalate further, hoping with each new provocation that this will will finally be the one that breaks the West’s defiance.

This is laughable offcourse, as many EU countries are directly being threatened by Russia’s aggression and thus have a vested interest not just in defended themselves, but in having Russia choke itself on Ukraine.

In other words, yes Russia’s army can’t stand toe to toe with NATO but Putin’s misguided beliefs and strategic incompetence are nonetheless increasing the chances of this war spilling over into a full scale war between NATO and Russia.

They were not capable of taking Ukraine in 3 days, but they still tried unfortunately. More important than what they can do, is what they think they can do. And more than that, is what they might want to/see as benefitial to do, whether it might succeed or not. And by "they" in this case, I really just mean Putin.

I'm capable of bitch slapping a cop it still doesn't make it a good idea.

That didn't and won't stop them from throwing people into the grinder and terrorise the civilians.

massive mobilization

That's not how Russia fights NATO. It's done with "asymmetric tactics" -- terrorism, basically.

That is true, but to be fair, UK kind of was the main character until WW2, Then USA became the main character.
But USA has made themselves irrelevant, their military power is now shown to be somewhat a paper tiger, and their global political influence is only a fraction of what it was a few years ago.
But what makes USA more irrelevant than anything, is their absolute inability to stand by any agreement they've made. Trump is even tearing up agreements he made himself. Like the trade deal with Canada. And the agreement they made with Iran before the attack. An agreement that gave USA basically everything they asked for!

So USA is kind of still the main character in some way, but they are not worth negotiating with. USA is probably the most untrustworthy country in the world right now. And also the absolute lack of standing by any ally, makes them irrelevant even to allies.
Only Russia and Israel have real influence on Trump, and both Russia and Israel had strong ties to Epstein.

Which is why I suspect that what the CIA director said is pretty irrelevant, what matters is what Putin said. And we will probably never know what Putin said.

If we see USA as the main character, the way to see it is that the main character is writing himself out of the script with an extremely poor performance nobody likes.

they are bound by NATO

I honestly don't think he gives a shit. He will just claim that this wouldn't have happened if NATO allies and Europe had increased defense budgets earlier like he demanded. And that Russia attacking NATO is the fault of the NATO allies, and btw NATO isn't helping USA in Iran.

Ratcliffe knows this and my guess is he’s trying to convince Moscow that Trump doesn’t call all the shots.

This would be nice if true, but I don't believe Trump would ever allow that. Trump is managing the administration as if it was an autocracy.

That's only defensive though and doesn't discourage Russia from doing it.