Was away from HN over the weekend, hence the slow response...

>>>OP stated that Russia don't have any warmwater ports outside Crimea which is obviously incorrect.

If Sevastopol is highlighted for its warm-water access, but Novorossiysk is not, then the issue is at best unclear.

>>>They could sign a peace agreement with Ukraine and quickly move their armies north no attack Finland, no?

Even leveraging interior lines and Russia's robust rail transportation network, pivoting 150,000+ men >1,100km (roughly the distance from Kursk to Petrozadovsk) is not something that happens quickly. Also, not all "NATO borders" are created equal. As I said, sharing a hostile border with Finland and sharing a hostile border with Ukraine do not present the same security implications for the heartland of the Russian state.

>>>Ukraine offered to commit to neutrality multiple times during peace negotiations in February and March, but Russia rejected the proposals

Did Russia reject the proposals, or did the West torpedo the negotiations?
https://www.globalresearch.ca/diplomacy-watch-did-boris-john...

>>>Which failed spectacularly and kinda proves my point?

Yet the American "Thunder Run" into Baghdad was a spectacular success, and Russia's own armored drive on Tblisi in 2008 was also reasonably successful. The tactical concept isn't the failure point, the abysmal incompetence of the force trying to execute it is. Russia's armored blitz into Grozny in 1995 was also a brutal and costly failure. They had the same problem then of a poorly-led and poorly-supported underskilled army driving into urban terrain held by experienced and well-led veterans.

>>>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 Ukrainians are turning off the search radars on their SAMs, and get fed extensive intelligence from practically every NATO ISR asset in Europe. They largely only activate their big long-range SAMs after NATO has already tipped them off to a threat. Combine that with generally threadbare Russian ISR of the Deep Battlespace, and Russian Air Force pilots not having the skill/experience to do very large US/Israeli-style strike packages. All of that has kept the airspace surprisingly contested.

By contrast, none of those limiting factors would apply to US airpower if we needed to peel back Russia's IADS. It's the one thing at which we are absolutely exceptional, and while Russian SAMs are still very respectable hardware, their personnel have demonstrated they are so incompetent/poorly trained....we'll probably walk all over them. Hopefully we don't have to find out.

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

Same here, no clue.

>>>Where is ad hominem exactly? Your portrayal of the start of WW2

Rather than engage with the argument you attempted to attack my credentials and/or regional knowledge. I did not make a "portrayal of the start of WW2" [emphasis mine], as my comments contain no temporal specificity. I said that the Soviets were on the receiving end of an invasion from an alliance on their western border. That's an indisputable fact. I didn't clarify WHEN, merely that it happened, and that it colors their logic and thought processes.

Here's another statement about an adversary within my actual Area of Operations: "North Korea was on the receiving end of a bombing campaign that destroyed every structure larger than a footbridge in the country." That doesn't imply that the war was started by a US bombing campaign, nor does it assign any moral justification to North Korea's actions. It merely provides context for things that affect our military planning today, such as North Korea having thousands of underground facilities. The entire country is an underground bunker complex. I have to constantly bring this up to shake overconfident Marine Corps officers out of their complacency, by comparing a fight in North Korea to "like invading Iwo Jima, except the defenders have fortified a territory the size of Indiana". But back on subject...

The key take-away is that the physical borders of the Russian state are demonstrably insecure from the west. Attacking along the Warsaw-Minsk-Moscow axis has been used in 1812, 1915, and 1941 for a reason, all with catastrophic implications for Russia. Russia will continually act with extreme paranoia regarding its European frontier, probably until they have reliable buffer states as far as the Carpathian Mountains. Watch this Finnish Colonel for some background: https://youtu.be/CvonRMSuFpw

>>>keep repeating Russian propaganda talking points

Dates. Distances. Timelines. Treaties. US Congressional discussions. You have contested the accuracy of none of them. If you conclude that they are all "Russian propaganda", perhaps you are simply DEEP in an ideological bubble?

>>>and make it look like they were just peacefully minding their own business in thirties

Don't put words in my mouth, at no point have I implied that. Your inference of such is entirely a product of your own biases.

>>>repeatedly calling Kyiv "Kiev"

I also refer to Volgograd as "Stalingrad", Myanmar as "Burma", and sometimes even Ho Chi Minh City as "Saigon". Again, anything you infer from that is a product of your own mind. Unless you spell Munich as "München" regularly, and do the same for every other native-language rendition of every city, in every conversation, then demanding usage of "Kyiv" is just a meaningless virtue-signal. As a side note, do some Google Searches with the date range feature. Reuters.com was using Kiev vice Kyiv in their English reporting as late as 2019. Why did they wait 5 years after Putin invaded the Donbas to switch? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crisis-rally-idUS... Reuters is still using "Munich", BTW. Those dastardly Anglophiles. /s

>>>but calling someone a paid shill will indeed be against HN rules

I'm not just a defense contractor, I'm also a NATO military officer. Just because I serve Russia's #1 geopolitical adversary doesn't mean I let my brain fall out of my head to be filled with whatever palatable nonsense is swallowed uncritically from major western sources. The number of field grade officers I knew who took the "Ghost of Kiev" at face value was equally shocking and disappointing. You must understand the context of why your opponent is making the moves that they make, or you will be surprised, caught off guard, or otherwise ill-positioned to send as many of them to Hell as possible. I find "Pressing 'X' to doubt" on most of the talking points coming from friendly sources more useful than the opposite approach.

Also spend some time lurking on the various intel fusion chatrooms on SIPR or JWICS if you have an appropriate security clearance, and read some of the historical orders for things like when we wanted to put anti-ballistic missiles in Eastern Europe in 2007 (IIRC there are EUCOM Campaign Orders for that, you can search on Intelink.sgov.gov on SIPR). It's important to grasp what we're REALLY doing and not just what we say we are doing. You'll find yourself with far more questions than answers.