> This 2013 report suggests that Sevastopol has superior all-weather access compared to Novorossiysk: [1] I'm not familiar enough with the meteorology of the region to articulate why. They probably could switch to the Caucasian coastline as a fallback plan, but I'm sure Russia looks at the problem from the lens of "we're a nuclear-armed Great Power, why the fuck would we compromise on this?" Sevastopol definitely provides better power projection across the whole Black Sea. [2]

You are moving the goalposts again. OP stated that Russia don't have any warmwater ports outside Crimea which is obviously incorrect.

> I think they were completely blindsided by Finland abandoning its long-standing neutrality, and have very few tools in their toolbox to leverage.

They could sign a peace agreement with Ukraine and quickly move their armies north no attack Finland, no? I mean, if Russia _really_ considered having (more?) borders with a NATO-member an existential threat (like they always pretend when discussing Ukraine in that context), then that would make total sense.

> Even when Putin had Ukraine as a borderline vassal state they were bitching about NATO expansion in their near abroad. Some of these arguments were made in the US Congress before Putin even came to power. [4] In particular, skip to the comments by Jonathan Dean and Michael Mandelbaum.

Well, Ukraine offered to commit to neutrality multiple times during peace negotiations in February and March, but Russia rejected the proposals and proceed with annexing more Ukrainian lands. Isn't it by now settled that they were just using NATO boogieman as a pretext for trying to (re)build their empire?

> It doesn't matter what you or I think about tank rushes, what matters is what the Russians think about tank rushes. [5] In case you missed it, they initiated this invasion with a multi-axis armored blitz towards Kiev combined with an air assault to secure a nearby Aerial Point of Debarkation.

Which failed spectacularly and kinda proves my point?

Also, they assumed that after initial missile barrage on Ukraine military assets they will achieve complete air superiority which didn't happen. I don't think anyone expects NATO to quickly achieve air superiority in Russian airspace, including Russia's own military analysts.

> The qualifier "of a nuclear superpower" doesn't add much to the conversation.

Of course it does! Russian nuclear doctrine permits them to conduct the first strike when "existence of Russian state is in danger", so they will most likely just tactical nuke the shit out of (hypothetical) NATO grouping on their border that is in the process of assuming attack formations. This also coincides nicely with their "escalate to de-escalate" playbook.

> Of the major nuclear powers, only India has a capital closer to an adversarial border than Russia (I don't count Pakistan or Israel as "superpowers")....and India maintains an exceptionally large tank fleet, and has fought some of the largest post-WW2 tank engagements between their capital and their border with Pakistan.

I have no knowledge of India's or Pakistan's nuclear doctrines. Do they permit first strike?

> Pretty sure ad hominems are against HN guidelines, but since you wanna go there...

Where is ad hominem exactly? Your portrayal of the start of WW2 makes you look on either misinformed or malicious (more on your talking points later). The fact that in next paragraph you are seemingly making U-turn on that doesn't change the formulation of your previous message.

> Oh? What "alliance" was that, specifically? As always, the devil is in the details. There were only two signatories to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: the Soviet Union and Germany. The Soviets had a bilateral agreement for the partition of Eastern Europe. That made them "co-belligerents", not "allies". They never signed any treaty with the Axis at large (for example, the Pact of Steel or the Tripartite Pact). They submitted a revised proposal for joining the Tripartite Pact to Germany which was quietly ignored as preparations for Operation Barbarossa were already underway. At no point in time was the USSR allied with Italy, Romania (14 divisions, almost 10% of the invading forces), Slovakia, Finland, or Hungary.

You are arguing semantics here (co-belligerent vs ally, etc.) while seemingly agreeing with me that USSR was one of the states that started the whole WW2 on the side of "evil western allies".

> TL;DR = Read more. Condescend less.

Well, you keep repeating Russian propaganda talking points and make it look like they were just peacefully minding their own business in thirties and then sneaky westerners cowardly back-stabbed them in forties. This is one of their favorite tropes how the whole world is against them and keep trying to either attack or contain them for no reason what-so-ever besides maybe some ingrained "russophobia". The very existence of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact secret protocols was denied by soviets for longest time BTW.

These details, your comment history, repeatedly calling Kyiv "Kiev" and doubling down on describing Russian invasion in Ukraine as completely self-defensive measure against menacing NATO expansion makes me doubt you are arguing in good faith here, but calling someone a paid shill will indeed be against HN rules...