Russian tactics with EU is not to start a full-scale war, but to draw aggro there, so they won't be able to chill and outsource the war to Ukraine, but instead to prepare themselves, which would limit the amount of support given to Ukraine. Make EU anxious -> EU keeps more resources at home instead of directing them to Ukraine. Even if it gets hot, advances are unlikely from both sides. (Believe it or not, but I didn't use AI to write this, I hate that it overuses some figures, so I'm forced to apologize for them).
You can hear similar individualistic rhetoric from puppets (Hungary and Slovakia, some parties in other EU countries), which themselves only get richer from the ongoing war (they provide almost no support, but get high return from taxing Ukrainian refugees, while also being subsidized by leading EU members).
Also, there is another Russian PsyOp to paint Ukraine as ridiculously corrupt country in mass consciousness, designed, again, to prevent others from providing support ("it will be stolen anyway"), which, unfortunately, plays well with Ukrainian fight with corruption (corruption scheme gets exposed, actual corruption goes down, but it's then used as an example, how corrupt it is, while in many countries, including EU, corruption is not much better, but dynamic of change is smaller, so there is no much public attention to it, and it's not magnified by Russian PsyOps).
The real attacks from Russia on EU and others are designed to weaken support of Ukraine, by any means.
Ukraine has a chance to capitalize on that, by collective defense programs and exporting extra munitions, such as drones (many companies sprung up and current production capacity is much more, that the government can pay for, so exports could subsidize locally consumed weapons, and interceptor drones are much cheaper, than missiles to intercept Shaheds aka Geran, Molnias and other, launched by hundreds each strike, sometimes even up to thousand a day), and experience, but it's slow to get to speed.
> I hope you are right about RS-26/Oreshnik
Me too, but it's not that precise anyways. It can deliver nuclear warheads, maybe it could be bettered with individually targeting submunitions, but in current form it's only good to carpet-bomb large areas, providing it could actually launch successfully. Note, that there was only one strike with it in many years, without using it they can paint it as better, than it is. Meanwhile, there were many failed launches of other IRBM/ICBMs in the last 10+ years, after giving up Yuzhmash expertise in rocket engines, leaving it to Ukraine, which can't capitalize on it financially (and US has now it's own cheap means to deliver satellites to orbit, thanks to SpaceX, so Ukrainian rockets are out of favor there as well)
> but you can't spread hope on your sandwich, as an old Russian proverb goes.
You can hear similar individualistic rhetoric from puppets (Hungary and Slovakia, some parties in other EU countries), which themselves only get richer from the ongoing war (they provide almost no support, but get high return from taxing Ukrainian refugees, while also being subsidized by leading EU members).
Also, there is another Russian PsyOp to paint Ukraine as ridiculously corrupt country in mass consciousness, designed, again, to prevent others from providing support ("it will be stolen anyway"), which, unfortunately, plays well with Ukrainian fight with corruption (corruption scheme gets exposed, actual corruption goes down, but it's then used as an example, how corrupt it is, while in many countries, including EU, corruption is not much better, but dynamic of change is smaller, so there is no much public attention to it, and it's not magnified by Russian PsyOps).
The real attacks from Russia on EU and others are designed to weaken support of Ukraine, by any means.
Ukraine has a chance to capitalize on that, by collective defense programs and exporting extra munitions, such as drones (many companies sprung up and current production capacity is much more, that the government can pay for, so exports could subsidize locally consumed weapons, and interceptor drones are much cheaper, than missiles to intercept Shaheds aka Geran, Molnias and other, launched by hundreds each strike, sometimes even up to thousand a day), and experience, but it's slow to get to speed.
> I hope you are right about RS-26/Oreshnik
Me too, but it's not that precise anyways. It can deliver nuclear warheads, maybe it could be bettered with individually targeting submunitions, but in current form it's only good to carpet-bomb large areas, providing it could actually launch successfully. Note, that there was only one strike with it in many years, without using it they can paint it as better, than it is. Meanwhile, there were many failed launches of other IRBM/ICBMs in the last 10+ years, after giving up Yuzhmash expertise in rocket engines, leaving it to Ukraine, which can't capitalize on it financially (and US has now it's own cheap means to deliver satellites to orbit, thanks to SpaceX, so Ukrainian rockets are out of favor there as well)
> but you can't spread hope on your sandwich, as an old Russian proverb goes.
I think you are thinking of another one.
1) You can't spread "thanks" on bread.
2) Hope dies last.