Russia and Ukraine flashpoint

[SecondWar]

Hiku said:

SecondWar said:

Ok, Syrians I can understand the logic. Serbians, not so much as they haven't fought a war in 20 years. Nagorno-Karabakh (also known as Artsakh) is very strange. Assuming they mean the ethnic Armenians and not the Russians stationed there as peace-keepers. They fought a war 18 months ago and got creamed. Not great experience and seems they are ineffective. One of the big takeaways was they used poor and out-dated tactics, similar to Russia now. Are they just being thrown there as cannon-fodder so Putin doesn't have to use his own soldiers?

Serbia is very close to Russia. (Figuratively) They consider themselves the same people, or brothers/sisters. Learning Russian in elementary school instead of English wasn't uncommon, at least a while back. Not sure about today.
And I believe probably the biggest thing is that they never forgot the NATO bombings of Yugoslavia.

NATO bombing of Yugoslavia - Wikipedia

So they are generally pretty anti-USA and pro Russia.
The country also devolved into corruption after the war.

All good points. The close ties between Serbia and Russia had slipped my mind. In the same vein, Armenia has had to get closer to Russia since the 2020 war or else it risks annihilation against Azerbaijan.

But in terms of military effectiveness I don’t see what they will bring besides numbers and troops that aren’t Russian for Putin to use.