Russia and Ukraine flashpoint

[Bofferbrauer2]

Ryuu96 said:

⚡️ US expert: Without national mobilization, Donbas is the last offensive Russia can afford.

Whether the Donbas offensive succeeds or fails, the Russian military will be largely exhausted after it, military expert Michael Kofman said on April 23.

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) April 23, 2022

That much was known already to most military analysts.

And it's even worse if Russia mobilizes it's citizens, since they lost too many senior officers to actually lead those into battle - or even train them to some degree.

Ka-pi96 said:

forest-spirit said:

I don't know about Finland but from what I've read Sweden won't have any guarantees from Nato until we're a full member, so there will be a window during the application process where Russia could attack without risking war with Nato.

They're both EU countries though, right? So they should have a guaranteed defensive pact with the rest of the EU due to that already.

They do, but apart from France, most countries in the EU have a rather puny army, so they couldn't send much support. However, with most countries in the EU are now increasing their military investments by quite a bit, so in a few years down the line, they could actually send some very substantial support even without the rest of NATO having to do anything.