Russia and Ukraine

[Mr Greene]

You also have to keep in mind that Putin is insane. He probably thinks that European soldiers wear skirts and makeup, and that they are satanic, so the only thing he needs to do is send some manly soldiers who will wave crucifixes to scare the NATO soldiers away.

He also thinks that NATO is not very united (especially with the US chickening out), so that they won't stick their necks out for the Baltic states which he will proclaim were always Russian and that they should just surrender to avoid the suffering through his online trolls like Belacqua.

Also, Ukraine is not some feeble country that you can say "they couldn't even conquer Ukraine". Ukraine has the largest army in Europe if we discount Russia.

He's eliminated any negative feedback, which tends to send things down the rabbit hole rather quickly. Those around him are spouting exagerations of their successes (see Kupiansk) while shoving their failures under the rug. As an ex KGB officer you might think he'd be more aware of this but he's still subject to the misinformation he's generated.

At the same time we have reports that Russia will likely collapse in 2027, still looking for confirmation of T55s in the frontline though difficult to tell with the boxes they add now.
Whilst NATO is talking about war being perhaps 5 years away. If Russia hits crisis in 2026/27 that would seem unlikely, so either they go whilst they still have capability or not at all.

I would hazard that the NATO/MI6/RUSI statements are about detering Putin as Russia goes into the point of crisis.