NATO wants a similar scenario not to repeat in the Balt states, which are members and have restless Russian minorities.
Doesn’t matter what we do. No European country is willing to fight the Russians. They are all happy to fight to the last GI and that’s it. No country has built the required nuke plants to counter Russian gas dominance.
We will know Europe is serious about the Russian threat when they start building a bunch of nuclear plants. Belarus is building a huge nuke plant right across the border from Vilnius! Lithuania’s response was nothing but a greenie protest. They shut down their only nuke plant and allowed the pinkos to delay any new plant. How smart does that look now?
The greenie/pinkos have totally paralyzed central and eastern europe and left them exposed to Russian bullying. Putin will keep Crimea and continue to destablize Ukraine. That will be the end of it. Nothing else will happen for now.
I think the Poles might disagree with that statement.
You may be right; if Putin manages not to irritate them further, guarantees the stability and borders of the Balt states, and makes a bilateral deal with Ukraine over Crimea, NATO will go and eat more cheese with Riesling and everyone will come out ahead. Ukraine has no reason to want Crimea anyway, it is not their organic part.
Possibly, that is Putin's game too.
However, as the Maidan showed, things often do not go like planned. Imagine some Russians in Estonia start taking over regional government offices etc. Now Estonia is a NATO member. What then?
Sitzkrieg.
Lithuania plans to finish their LNG terminal by the end of this year. Estonia and Finland just announced two days ago of building their own ones and joining them with undersea pipeline.