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To: Cronos

Russia has troops along the Finish border, along the Baltic states borders, in Syria, Libya, Armenia, Belarus, Chechnya, they used to have folks in Venezuela, strategic forces that can’t really deploy (nuclear forces etc), and like us cannot surge all their people to one place in the spotlight that day.

You are wrong.

Had Russia been able to invade earlier after our ill advised NATO expansion move, they surely would have. Every day they wait meant we were pumping Ukraine up even more.

Russia FACTUALLY didn’t invade for 3.5 months because that is how long it took them to move the forces into position and call up reserves to be able to invade Ukraine. They did not have the ABILITY to invade prior to that.


55 posted on 02/18/2026 8:28:04 AM PST by Red6
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To: Red6; freeandfreezing

You first wrote “The Russians didn’t even have a military force CAPABLE of threatening Ukraine....” in 2021

now you write “Russia has troops along the Finish border, along the Baltic states borders, in Syria, Libya, Armenia, Belarus, Chechnya, they used to have folks in Venezuela, strategic forces that can’t really deploy (nuclear forces etc), and like us cannot surge all their people to one place in the spotlight that day.”

They shifted troops to the border with Ukraine in 2021 - with nearly 200K troops by Feb 2022


56 posted on 02/18/2026 8:37:54 AM PST by Cronos
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To: Red6; freeandfreezing

“Had Russia been able to invade earlier after our ill advised NATO expansion move, they surely would have”

What “NATO expansion move”?

You don’t seem to get it - the Baltic states, Poland, Bulgaria etc. all begged NATO to join, they fulfilled criteria to join and they requested to join. Their requests had to be unanimously accepted by the members of the club.

There was no drive “let’s get these guys in”


57 posted on 02/18/2026 8:39:10 AM PST by Cronos
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To: Red6; freeandfreezing

“Every day they wait meant we were pumping Ukraine up more”

That flies in the face of the fact that

1. Germany and France had not changed their minds about keeping Ukraine out and continuing to get cheap gas from Russia

2. Biden withdrew American diplomats etc. well in advance

Ukraine was preparing itself for a war of defense along the Donbas as Russia had invaded in 2014 - did you forget that?


58 posted on 02/18/2026 8:40:47 AM PST by Cronos
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To: Red6; freeandfreezing

“Russia FACTUALLY didn’t invade for 3.5 months because that is how long it took them to move the forces into position and call up reserves to be able to invade Ukraine. They did not have the ABILITY to invade prior to that.”

That makes no sense - they didn’t invade because they were waiting for winter to end and for Biden to abandon Ukraine


59 posted on 02/18/2026 8:41:27 AM PST by Cronos
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