Russian Invasion of Ukraine

[unloadonme]

I suspect it is reconnaissance to use IF a plane gets shot down. The response would be to hit a NATO target to show a limited conventional response. Or, if a NATO country assists Ukraine more directly. an attack would happen.

If NATO were to directly shoot down a Russian plane over Ukraine (as opposed to enable the Ukrainians to do it), then Russia might conceivably retaliate against a NATO target. However, if a Russian plane were to be shot down over NATO territory, history shows that they would bluster but not make a bad situation worse. By history, I'm thinking of the incident over Turkey in 2015 described in the link below.

2015 Russian Sukhoi Su-24 shootdown - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[rareboy]

Agreed. Again! If Russia starts a conventional war with NATO, its performance in Ukraine shows that it will lose. If it starts a nuclear war, as you say, everyone will lose. There's no way Russia can win.

The question then is whether rrrZZZia has any leverage left in threatening dirty war in Europe.

I think not. The whole world may have trembled when the Soviet Union threatened the West during the Cold War, but I don't see the current campagin of reco drones hovering around border country airports and cities having any real effect.

We seem to be over the pearl clutching hysterics on the US right as well about the Kremlin lobbing nukes at Texas because of Ukraine.

TBH, I have no idea what the USSR is gaining by drones over NATO countries except for identifying weakneses in defensive lines.

 

[NotHardUp1]

If NATO were to directly shoot down a Russian plane over Ukraine (as opposed to enable the Ukrainians to do it), then Russia might conceivably retaliate against a NATO target. However, if a Russian plane were to be shot down over NATO territory, history shows that they would bluster but not make a bad situation worse. By history, I'm thinking of the incident over Turkey in 2015 described in the link below.

2015 Russian Sukhoi Su-24 shootdown - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I was thinking of over NATO air space.