Tulsi is simply stating what everyone who does not confine themselves to an information bubble already knows. It is the daily business of secret services to assess the situation correctly internally and to communicate externally in the narrative of interest of the country they represent – in other words, to manipulate for their own benefit.
So when Tulsi passes on internal information, she assumes that it is already common knowledge among the majority in the information space. Even in Ukraine all people know this, who not lost their head in fanatics.
I would love to comment more on this, but I suspect that I could then be directly affected by debanking in Germany.
Thank you for your daily reflections this year, @korybko.
Yes, I am considering subscribing. Because, in fact, you provide the best expertise for all people who view Russians not as inferior beings, but as equal individuals whose culture deserves respect.
At this time of year, when preparations for New Year are in full swing, Moscow is arguably the most beautiful city in the world.
"Everyone who does not confine themselves to an information bubble"... should know :-). In Germany, it is very difficult and time-consuming these days to leave the mainstream bubble alongside the like-minded established German press. However, those who do so are confronted with perspectives and facts that are 180 degrees controversial to government, NATO, and EU publications. If you make these views public, it is actually, at the very least, a career risk, followed by house search warrants and, in the worst case, criminal prosecution. That is actually my Germany in 2025 – as JD Vance has already indicated. But I still trust in the intelligence and reason of my fellow German citizens.... to make German Democrazy great again... Cheers an all the best Martin
In Germany (also another European countries, though not quite as pronounced), media consumers have a simple way of getting an overview:
Since the mainstream narrative now accounts for 90% of all real-life interactions, you simply switch off all mainstream media completely. Also radio. Not even in the car. I started doing this 32 years ago and have always been well informed.
Since 2001, I have used the time I saved to research alternative media worldwide.
I always watch the different perspectives, form my own opinion. I hardly ever share posts from alternative media. Therefore, I have relatively few problems with the suppression of free opinion-forming through the ban on some foreign media.
I wouldn't share banned content anyway. Furthermore, after being banned from LinkedIn (because I wasn't 100% pro-UA and disputed a few unsubstantiated truths), Substack is the first social media platform I use. Since 23 December 2025.
Bans have been common practice in Central Europe for 20 years. It has happened to me at least five times. Each time without justification. Each time without cause. But it's like that everywhere. In the EU, the truth itself has become a risk.
A socialist in my family predicted in 1980 how the EU would develop by 2020 and collapse into fascism. He was frighteningly right.
I was fascinated by Europe. But looking at it soberly, can Europe no longer be taken seriously?
Conclusion: People who know life, who interact live, also listen and who understand their own added value through productive work can also smell hidden manipulation.
You just have to train yourself.
To properly assess this willingness to train in media consumption, just look at the example of how many people take out an annual gym membership and how many then actually work out more than 10 times in a row. The better option (if they're not stalking the opposite sex) is to talk to each other in person. But 90% of people mainly look at their phones and allow themselves to be further manipulated intrinsically. This is called ‘entertainment’.
It has been instilled over decades into our innermost self-image. This can no longer be reversed without methodically disruptive changes in social interaction. One can only expect this mass to be able to differentiate if this differentiation does not affect the person themselves.
Thank You for your thoughts and reflections, LnF. I widely agree :-) - your appeal to switch off? It was not until 2020 (Corona) that I recognized the magnitude of the “problem.” However, instead of switching off, I tried to refute misinformation, disinformation in public channels. May be a naive move, since it was fruitless, ultimately bad for my soul, and I gave up. At least I tried… :-)
By the way – another take away from my fruitless trials. Appeals are not the best way to trigger insight and a change in mindset :-) .
I would allow myself to comment on the "socialist in your family" - I guess, a very far-sighted person, experienced in life? This foresight already in the 80ties would have really surprised me, if I hadn't recently read about Tony Benn. May be you know him. For me it was surprising to read about the view on the EC of "Socialist", Sir Anthony Benn *1925, lord by birth & labour red wing & RAF pilot 1943-1945. Perhaps that RAF experience was one major reason, why he was originally a passionate advocate of the EC, as an economic community of european nations. Later he went from being a Paul to a Saul. He had already made a U-turn in the 1970s when the first authoritarian and undemocratic contours of the system began to emerge. It was only in the 2010s that I (born in 1956) realized the authoritarian and destructive direction in which the EU was developing. Well, better late than never :-)
PS. Quote from the late Tony Benn: “When I saw how the European Union was developing, it was very obvious what they had in mind was not democratic. In Britain, you vote for a government so the government has to listen to you, and if you don't like it you can change it.”
It’s not just Tulsi’s assessment. It’s the assessment of the combined US intelligence services, which has till now been deliberately kept from the public.
Her passionate post strongly suggests that she shares the assessment and isn't begrudgingly conveying its conclusions to the public against her personal opinion on this.
Exactly- Thanks :-) !! And just to complete the picture, including genuine high ranking Officers / experts: German Amiral Schönbach, Four Star General Kujat, suisse Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Bosshard, intelligence officer Jaques Baud, just to name a few - all with really impressive military careers, in contrast to my government, the mainstream journalists -and likewise several high-ranking military officers in the USA., even from the "Falcons" (Rep.) And last but not least the most reputet geopol. Experts John Mearsheimer, Jeffrey Sachs etc. Cheers Martin
“Russia’s battlefield performance indicates it does not currently have the capability to conquer and occupy all of Ukraine, let alone Europe.”
Tulsi Gabbard is absolutely correct. This is a somewhat similar situation to the Mexican – American War of 1846-1848. US forces occupied huge territories all the way to and including Mexico City at the time. Modern historians today are shy to admit this but the US was unwilling to keep territories south of Texas and California. The reasoning was that the foreign population would “poison the blood and culture of America”. I keep repeating this on this forum: It is very clear from the early stage in 2022, Russia was blindsided and unprepared for this conflict. Why? Because the whole strategy was designed to take this to the very edge of a nuclear war and they were thinking (properly) that Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) was still functional. This is why they neglected to invest in traditional military forces, a large percentage of their army officers were actually Ukrainians in early 2022. The US/NATO strategy was faulty, the product of irrational, disturbed minds from the very start.
There was a reason why Yeltsin forced an exit from the Soviet satellite states. He wanted to shape the new Russian Federation into a nation state and he did. In 1991 Russia suddenly became 90% Russian.
Putin does not want a “victory” where Russia has to deal with a highly hostile Ukraine population to the end of times. He wants to save the Millions of Russians living there on traditional Russian lands and corresponding industries. And if Kazakhstan forces the issue the same principles will be applied to the three million Russians living there also.
You're right, and kudos to you for consistently repeating this since I'm sure that you've faced a lot of pushback -- some of it very nasty -- for it like I have over the years.
It is a Russian game of sanity vs. US/NATO insanity. They will not use nukes until they see an actual invasion materializing on Russia proper or until they see they cannot save the state anymore with traditional warfare.
Good that we have people who recognize reality. Russia & the USA are both nuclear super powers each havung about 45% of the worlds nuclear weapons. USA & Russia must be friends not enemies. Who wants Russia as an enemy?? We need to identify these people & have them explaine why they hate Russia so much.
Yes, expanding territorially via brute force to the USSR or Warsaw Pact borders is unlikely (even taking Western Ukraine would be too much to swallow), but wouldn't you say that achieving Russia's stated goal of expanding its sphere of influence up to Oder river (by diplomacy, intimidation, regime change, etc.) is still likely within the coming decade or two?
I don't believe that Russia's goal is to restore its sphere of influence over Central Europe (perhaps it once was during the pre-SMO days but no longer IMO), nor that it realistically could.
The most that it could attain is relatively more pragmatic ties with some of those countries, but the EU's ongoing militarization and planned post-SMO continued militarization place very real limits on what this would mean for Russian interests.
At best, some of the "frontline states" might behave more responsibly in the sense of not trying to provoke a conflict with Russia or allowing third countries like the UK to do so, but I don't think anything else more significant is realistically possible.
A fringe scenario is the US voluntarily ceding some of its new oil and gas market in the EU to Russia as long as the oil being sold is from jointly US-funded projects and the gas is sent via jointly or fully US-controlled pipelines so that it still profits and has influence.
Again, it's a fringe scenario and would require a lot concessions on Russia's part even though there are ways for it to benefit from this too, but it wouldn't be to the extent that one imagines when they think of a Russian sphere of influence returning to the region.
Russia's ultimatum two months before SMO included a roll-back of NATO deployments to pre-1997 NATO borders, among other things. Do you reckon it was purely a defensive demand? I mean, with USA abandoning its world hegemon position in favor of off-shore balancing and the resulting security vacuum/uncertainty in Europe (which geopoliticians have been hammering about for two decades and which is now pretty much official), Europe is bound to revert to the usual old logic that involves competition and struggle for influence between the major European powers themselves, no? With hegemon and his security guarantees gone, why have a mere buffer zone when you can have a sphere of influence? With NATO forces rolled back to 1997, Poland, Baltics, Romania and so on are pretty much defenseless and potentially easily intimidated/Finlandized, especially since Western Europe (excluding U.K., obviously) historically tends to seek a deal with Russia on this. And while such a deal could in theory come about peacefully, U.K. (and declarations of strategic pivot away from Europe aside, USA as well) perceives unified Europe as a threat and therefore will support Eastern/Central/Northern Europeans that feel threatened by Russia and support any conflict that could engulf Russia and Europe in a major war.
Sure, and here's my respond to each point in sequence:
1. That aspect of Russia's security guarantee requests was meant to alleviate and ultimately resolve the decades-long NATO-Russian security dilemma in Central Europe brought about by NATO's continued eastward expansion in contravention of its promise to Russia not to expand beyond Germany.
Even if the US agreed and perfectly complied with it, the domestic political outcome in the "frontline states" (the Baltic States and Poland, sometimes including Romania) could have still fueled the rise of anti-Russian politicians who'd implement associated policies out of perceived fear of Russia.
2. There is no security vacuum in Europe right now since the US is still deeply entrenched there and arguably appears to be preparing for Poland to replace its role in containing Russia in Central & Eastern Europe (CEE), obviously to a comparatively lesser extent but nonetheless not allowing a vacuum to form.
In connection with that, Poland under its new president has proactively sought to position itself as the center of CEE's anti-Russian policies in an attempt to revive and successfully implement interwar leader Pilsudski's failed Intermarium policy of rallying regional countries against Russia.
3. France, Germany, and Poland are already competing for leadership of Europe in varying ways and regions (bloc-wide in France and Germany's, only regional in Poland's case), but this rivalry is more or less manageable due to shared membership in the EU and NATO and shared junior partnership vis-a-vis the US.
The likelihood of it spiraling out of control is low, let alone spiraling so far that the US is unable to manage everything and Russia is thus able to successfully exploit it all in ways that tangibly advance its interests such as instigating an intra-NATO war or getting a member to pull out of NATO (even if only de facto).
4. The US still exerts hegemony over the EU and this was even expanded in the economic dimension over the summer as a result of their lopsided trade deal by which US exports won't be tariffed while most EU exports will be tariffed at 15%. This can therefore be leveraged to maintain its other forms of hegemony too.
The US rarely cedes spheres of influence and hasn't ever ceded anything that it's achieved in Europe thus far so precedent suggests that it won't sit back and let Russia advance its political influence in CEE with a view towards redirecting countries' trade relationships and eventually even military loyalties.
5. Poland nowadays commands the third-largest military in NATO and is much more heavily equipped by all metrics than Ukraine was on the eve of the SMO. Ukraine proved not to be a pushover, largely due to NATO support and some undeniable problems with how the initial phase of the SMO was waged.
Accordingly, there's no reason to expect Poland to be the pushover that much less equipped non-NATO Ukraine wasn't. The Baltics and Romania, sure, but any Russian attack against a NATO country, let alone an invasion, will trigger Article 5. Poland is positioned to lead the defense of all four before US help arrives.
6. Just because something once was, doesn't automatically mean that it still is, nor that it always will be, which in this context refers to Western Europe's relatively more pragmatic approach towards Russia in the past. In fact, it was Germany that led the charge for stealing Russia's seized assets, which failed.
While Germany wants to conquer the continent without a shot by leveraging its hegemonic influence over the EU to this end, it's not interested in ceding any market share or security role to Russia, at all, especially not now after the SMO. The scenario is therefore strictly academic/hypothetical and not realistic.
Whether or not Putin wishes to conquer Ukraine is irrelevant. Gabbard seeks to sell a peace plan to a foreign policy establishment that is skeptical, to say the least.
It would be untenable for Russia to take over non-Russophone oblasts, thus potentially leading to an insurgency if they had enough people to cause trouble. In any event, Putin has stated the goals of the SMO clearly and consistently. Only the West misconstrues them.
The point is - the West probably has little use for land-bound Ukrainian Ukraine which has no access to the Black Sea. Same goes to Poland's Three Seas Initiative.
Dec 17, 2025 Why Putin Rejects Western Warnings of Possible War With Russia?
Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed Western calls urging preparation for a possible war with Russia, calling such claims a lie. Speaking amid heightened tensions between Moscow and Western nations, Putin accused Western leaders of misleading their public and fueling unnecessary fear.
Tulsi is simply stating what everyone who does not confine themselves to an information bubble already knows. It is the daily business of secret services to assess the situation correctly internally and to communicate externally in the narrative of interest of the country they represent – in other words, to manipulate for their own benefit.
So when Tulsi passes on internal information, she assumes that it is already common knowledge among the majority in the information space. Even in Ukraine all people know this, who not lost their head in fanatics.
I would love to comment more on this, but I suspect that I could then be directly affected by debanking in Germany.
Thank you for your daily reflections this year, @korybko.
Stay well in 2026!
Thanks for your feedback and support of my work!
Yes, I am considering subscribing. Because, in fact, you provide the best expertise for all people who view Russians not as inferior beings, but as equal individuals whose culture deserves respect.
At this time of year, when preparations for New Year are in full swing, Moscow is arguably the most beautiful city in the world.
С завидным успехом, с Новым годом!
Many thanks, that's very kind of you! Wishing you an early Merry Christmas if you celebrate and a Happy New Year too!
"Everyone who does not confine themselves to an information bubble"... should know :-). In Germany, it is very difficult and time-consuming these days to leave the mainstream bubble alongside the like-minded established German press. However, those who do so are confronted with perspectives and facts that are 180 degrees controversial to government, NATO, and EU publications. If you make these views public, it is actually, at the very least, a career risk, followed by house search warrants and, in the worst case, criminal prosecution. That is actually my Germany in 2025 – as JD Vance has already indicated. But I still trust in the intelligence and reason of my fellow German citizens.... to make German Democrazy great again... Cheers an all the best Martin
In Germany (also another European countries, though not quite as pronounced), media consumers have a simple way of getting an overview:
Since the mainstream narrative now accounts for 90% of all real-life interactions, you simply switch off all mainstream media completely. Also radio. Not even in the car. I started doing this 32 years ago and have always been well informed.
Since 2001, I have used the time I saved to research alternative media worldwide.
I always watch the different perspectives, form my own opinion. I hardly ever share posts from alternative media. Therefore, I have relatively few problems with the suppression of free opinion-forming through the ban on some foreign media.
I wouldn't share banned content anyway. Furthermore, after being banned from LinkedIn (because I wasn't 100% pro-UA and disputed a few unsubstantiated truths), Substack is the first social media platform I use. Since 23 December 2025.
Bans have been common practice in Central Europe for 20 years. It has happened to me at least five times. Each time without justification. Each time without cause. But it's like that everywhere. In the EU, the truth itself has become a risk.
A socialist in my family predicted in 1980 how the EU would develop by 2020 and collapse into fascism. He was frighteningly right.
I was fascinated by Europe. But looking at it soberly, can Europe no longer be taken seriously?
Conclusion: People who know life, who interact live, also listen and who understand their own added value through productive work can also smell hidden manipulation.
You just have to train yourself.
To properly assess this willingness to train in media consumption, just look at the example of how many people take out an annual gym membership and how many then actually work out more than 10 times in a row. The better option (if they're not stalking the opposite sex) is to talk to each other in person. But 90% of people mainly look at their phones and allow themselves to be further manipulated intrinsically. This is called ‘entertainment’.
It has been instilled over decades into our innermost self-image. This can no longer be reversed without methodically disruptive changes in social interaction. One can only expect this mass to be able to differentiate if this differentiation does not affect the person themselves.
Therefore, the train has left the station.
Thank You for your thoughts and reflections, LnF. I widely agree :-) - your appeal to switch off? It was not until 2020 (Corona) that I recognized the magnitude of the “problem.” However, instead of switching off, I tried to refute misinformation, disinformation in public channels. May be a naive move, since it was fruitless, ultimately bad for my soul, and I gave up. At least I tried… :-)
By the way – another take away from my fruitless trials. Appeals are not the best way to trigger insight and a change in mindset :-) .
I would allow myself to comment on the "socialist in your family" - I guess, a very far-sighted person, experienced in life? This foresight already in the 80ties would have really surprised me, if I hadn't recently read about Tony Benn. May be you know him. For me it was surprising to read about the view on the EC of "Socialist", Sir Anthony Benn *1925, lord by birth & labour red wing & RAF pilot 1943-1945. Perhaps that RAF experience was one major reason, why he was originally a passionate advocate of the EC, as an economic community of european nations. Later he went from being a Paul to a Saul. He had already made a U-turn in the 1970s when the first authoritarian and undemocratic contours of the system began to emerge. It was only in the 2010s that I (born in 1956) realized the authoritarian and destructive direction in which the EU was developing. Well, better late than never :-)
PS. Quote from the late Tony Benn: “When I saw how the European Union was developing, it was very obvious what they had in mind was not democratic. In Britain, you vote for a government so the government has to listen to you, and if you don't like it you can change it.”
It’s not just Tulsi’s assessment. It’s the assessment of the combined US intelligence services, which has till now been deliberately kept from the public.
Her passionate post strongly suggests that she shares the assessment and isn't begrudgingly conveying its conclusions to the public against her personal opinion on this.
Yes, I agree. I did not mean to detract from your headline, but rather to intensify it.
Exactly- Thanks :-) !! And just to complete the picture, including genuine high ranking Officers / experts: German Amiral Schönbach, Four Star General Kujat, suisse Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Bosshard, intelligence officer Jaques Baud, just to name a few - all with really impressive military careers, in contrast to my government, the mainstream journalists -and likewise several high-ranking military officers in the USA., even from the "Falcons" (Rep.) And last but not least the most reputet geopol. Experts John Mearsheimer, Jeffrey Sachs etc. Cheers Martin
“Russia’s battlefield performance indicates it does not currently have the capability to conquer and occupy all of Ukraine, let alone Europe.”
Tulsi Gabbard is absolutely correct. This is a somewhat similar situation to the Mexican – American War of 1846-1848. US forces occupied huge territories all the way to and including Mexico City at the time. Modern historians today are shy to admit this but the US was unwilling to keep territories south of Texas and California. The reasoning was that the foreign population would “poison the blood and culture of America”. I keep repeating this on this forum: It is very clear from the early stage in 2022, Russia was blindsided and unprepared for this conflict. Why? Because the whole strategy was designed to take this to the very edge of a nuclear war and they were thinking (properly) that Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) was still functional. This is why they neglected to invest in traditional military forces, a large percentage of their army officers were actually Ukrainians in early 2022. The US/NATO strategy was faulty, the product of irrational, disturbed minds from the very start.
There was a reason why Yeltsin forced an exit from the Soviet satellite states. He wanted to shape the new Russian Federation into a nation state and he did. In 1991 Russia suddenly became 90% Russian.
Putin does not want a “victory” where Russia has to deal with a highly hostile Ukraine population to the end of times. He wants to save the Millions of Russians living there on traditional Russian lands and corresponding industries. And if Kazakhstan forces the issue the same principles will be applied to the three million Russians living there also.
You're right, and kudos to you for consistently repeating this since I'm sure that you've faced a lot of pushback -- some of it very nasty -- for it like I have over the years.
Yeah, sometimes they are ugly because their mammy is dressing them funny...
Sadly it would appear there are those that think Putin is bluffing regarding the use of nukes… What does he do then?
It is a Russian game of sanity vs. US/NATO insanity. They will not use nukes until they see an actual invasion materializing on Russia proper or until they see they cannot save the state anymore with traditional warfare.
Good that we have people who recognize reality. Russia & the USA are both nuclear super powers each havung about 45% of the worlds nuclear weapons. USA & Russia must be friends not enemies. Who wants Russia as an enemy?? We need to identify these people & have them explaine why they hate Russia so much.
Exactly! I have said the same thing many times.
Yes, expanding territorially via brute force to the USSR or Warsaw Pact borders is unlikely (even taking Western Ukraine would be too much to swallow), but wouldn't you say that achieving Russia's stated goal of expanding its sphere of influence up to Oder river (by diplomacy, intimidation, regime change, etc.) is still likely within the coming decade or two?
I don't believe that Russia's goal is to restore its sphere of influence over Central Europe (perhaps it once was during the pre-SMO days but no longer IMO), nor that it realistically could.
The most that it could attain is relatively more pragmatic ties with some of those countries, but the EU's ongoing militarization and planned post-SMO continued militarization place very real limits on what this would mean for Russian interests.
At best, some of the "frontline states" might behave more responsibly in the sense of not trying to provoke a conflict with Russia or allowing third countries like the UK to do so, but I don't think anything else more significant is realistically possible.
A fringe scenario is the US voluntarily ceding some of its new oil and gas market in the EU to Russia as long as the oil being sold is from jointly US-funded projects and the gas is sent via jointly or fully US-controlled pipelines so that it still profits and has influence.
Again, it's a fringe scenario and would require a lot concessions on Russia's part even though there are ways for it to benefit from this too, but it wouldn't be to the extent that one imagines when they think of a Russian sphere of influence returning to the region.
Let me play devil's advocate a bit.
Russia's ultimatum two months before SMO included a roll-back of NATO deployments to pre-1997 NATO borders, among other things. Do you reckon it was purely a defensive demand? I mean, with USA abandoning its world hegemon position in favor of off-shore balancing and the resulting security vacuum/uncertainty in Europe (which geopoliticians have been hammering about for two decades and which is now pretty much official), Europe is bound to revert to the usual old logic that involves competition and struggle for influence between the major European powers themselves, no? With hegemon and his security guarantees gone, why have a mere buffer zone when you can have a sphere of influence? With NATO forces rolled back to 1997, Poland, Baltics, Romania and so on are pretty much defenseless and potentially easily intimidated/Finlandized, especially since Western Europe (excluding U.K., obviously) historically tends to seek a deal with Russia on this. And while such a deal could in theory come about peacefully, U.K. (and declarations of strategic pivot away from Europe aside, USA as well) perceives unified Europe as a threat and therefore will support Eastern/Central/Northern Europeans that feel threatened by Russia and support any conflict that could engulf Russia and Europe in a major war.
Sure, and here's my respond to each point in sequence:
1. That aspect of Russia's security guarantee requests was meant to alleviate and ultimately resolve the decades-long NATO-Russian security dilemma in Central Europe brought about by NATO's continued eastward expansion in contravention of its promise to Russia not to expand beyond Germany.
Even if the US agreed and perfectly complied with it, the domestic political outcome in the "frontline states" (the Baltic States and Poland, sometimes including Romania) could have still fueled the rise of anti-Russian politicians who'd implement associated policies out of perceived fear of Russia.
2. There is no security vacuum in Europe right now since the US is still deeply entrenched there and arguably appears to be preparing for Poland to replace its role in containing Russia in Central & Eastern Europe (CEE), obviously to a comparatively lesser extent but nonetheless not allowing a vacuum to form.
In connection with that, Poland under its new president has proactively sought to position itself as the center of CEE's anti-Russian policies in an attempt to revive and successfully implement interwar leader Pilsudski's failed Intermarium policy of rallying regional countries against Russia.
3. France, Germany, and Poland are already competing for leadership of Europe in varying ways and regions (bloc-wide in France and Germany's, only regional in Poland's case), but this rivalry is more or less manageable due to shared membership in the EU and NATO and shared junior partnership vis-a-vis the US.
The likelihood of it spiraling out of control is low, let alone spiraling so far that the US is unable to manage everything and Russia is thus able to successfully exploit it all in ways that tangibly advance its interests such as instigating an intra-NATO war or getting a member to pull out of NATO (even if only de facto).
4. The US still exerts hegemony over the EU and this was even expanded in the economic dimension over the summer as a result of their lopsided trade deal by which US exports won't be tariffed while most EU exports will be tariffed at 15%. This can therefore be leveraged to maintain its other forms of hegemony too.
The US rarely cedes spheres of influence and hasn't ever ceded anything that it's achieved in Europe thus far so precedent suggests that it won't sit back and let Russia advance its political influence in CEE with a view towards redirecting countries' trade relationships and eventually even military loyalties.
5. Poland nowadays commands the third-largest military in NATO and is much more heavily equipped by all metrics than Ukraine was on the eve of the SMO. Ukraine proved not to be a pushover, largely due to NATO support and some undeniable problems with how the initial phase of the SMO was waged.
Accordingly, there's no reason to expect Poland to be the pushover that much less equipped non-NATO Ukraine wasn't. The Baltics and Romania, sure, but any Russian attack against a NATO country, let alone an invasion, will trigger Article 5. Poland is positioned to lead the defense of all four before US help arrives.
6. Just because something once was, doesn't automatically mean that it still is, nor that it always will be, which in this context refers to Western Europe's relatively more pragmatic approach towards Russia in the past. In fact, it was Germany that led the charge for stealing Russia's seized assets, which failed.
While Germany wants to conquer the continent without a shot by leveraging its hegemonic influence over the EU to this end, it's not interested in ceding any market share or security role to Russia, at all, especially not now after the SMO. The scenario is therefore strictly academic/hypothetical and not realistic.
Up to Oder is difficult, as it would require Russia's eternal enemy, Poland, to become an ally.
Whether or not Putin wishes to conquer Ukraine is irrelevant. Gabbard seeks to sell a peace plan to a foreign policy establishment that is skeptical, to say the least.
What utter bullshit.
It would be untenable for Russia to take over non-Russophone oblasts, thus potentially leading to an insurgency if they had enough people to cause trouble. In any event, Putin has stated the goals of the SMO clearly and consistently. Only the West misconstrues them.
The point is - the West probably has little use for land-bound Ukrainian Ukraine which has no access to the Black Sea. Same goes to Poland's Three Seas Initiative.
Tulsi is a warmongering shapeshifting piece of crap: But she got this one right!
Why on earth would Russia want to keep hundreds of thousands of soldiers patrolling Galicia?
It’s such a dumb talking point.
Russia isn’t the USSR. The USSR actually had the resources to keep a million soldiers in Eastern Europe and the Ukraine/The Baltic states.
Dec 17, 2025 Why Putin Rejects Western Warnings of Possible War With Russia?
Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed Western calls urging preparation for a possible war with Russia, calling such claims a lie. Speaking amid heightened tensions between Moscow and Western nations, Putin accused Western leaders of misleading their public and fueling unnecessary fear.
https://youtu.be/VhkD1-XGlAo?si=kA1eRbX5AGNqNXKi