There are also countless ways for people to generate empty rhetoric without contributing anything of significance.
I am getting at the fact that Russia and the Russians as a people irrespective of who is in the Kremlin have a lot of different interests which they did not defend for a few decades because they were either being run by a drunk thet got elected with help from abroad, because their economy was collapsing, because they believed the "not an inch east" rhetoric, etc.
Sure, if you are trying to convince me that a lot of Russians support the idea of Russian Empire rebuilding style policy, i'm not one of the "Russians are poor little liberals like everyone else oppressed by oligarchs and FSB" people, i can believe that.
Meanwhile, a number of small, loud shitty countries like the Baltics sprsng up as successor states to the USSR, which didn't really care about the Russian ethnic interest or make contingency plans for after it's fall because muh socialist global utopia, hence ethnic Russians or what Putin calls Russian speakers got stranded all over the place, including in newly created counties with shaky foundations like Ukraine that quiver like leaves in the wind at the thought of separatism because they are not that legitimate to begin with.
Think places like Ukraine which was mostly a commie Frankenstein's monster, the Baltics with their segregated Russian populations and the like.
The tone of the first sentence is touching and very informative of your bias.
I'll play the world's smallest violin for Russia's half-aborted attempts at settler colonizing nearby countries.
For the unfortunate people mixed up in them, i have the same advice i have for the diverse migrants who want to change western countries to be more like their homelands.
If you hate it here, perhaps think the people here are mean to you and treat you badly, and you want to live somewhere that's more like your home, then go fucking home.
They don't even have the excuse that their homeland is a war torn failed state (yet) or overcrowded like Bangladesh. If they love Russia so much they can't learn the local language and care so much about its culture, and are supposedly treated so badly where they are, why don't they move there? It's not like the Balts are sending everyone they catch on the border to death camps, they would fucking roll out a red carpet for them to fuck off.
Add to that the attempts of some counties to interfere in Russian internal affairs or place first strike weapons hear to their borders for a decapitation strike and you get an ugly situation.
Crimea river. It's nothing other countries don't do or deal with, and Russia is in no way behind the world average in this kind of stuff.
One way to defuse it is for the Baltics and a few other places to acknowledge they are artificial constructs of the USSR to a large degree and to swallow the fact that there is a large country they were once part of next door and deal with it like adults.
Yes, surrender sure is a way to defuse a tension with an expansionist power next door that has colonized them already in the past.
But whether it's a good way... let's not ask the people who are biased towards it.
As to Poland, well, first off it needs to deal with it's fear which makes it act like a manic depressive neurotic teenagebrat throwing a tantrum.
Lol... Russia first. If you want to use paranoia to excuse shitty behavior for Russia, we have better excuses.
So, first off, stop thinking you will get any Zhoposhspolita back.
So, first off Russia needs to stop thinking it will be an Empire or a Soviet Union like entity again. Ever. See, i can be a smartass too.
Second, instead of playing silly games abroad you can just acquire nuclear weapons for "Muskov" deterrence.
Nice try, asshole. Maybe when NPT dies through shenanigans in Asia and ME. Until then, becoming Europe's Iran or NK would only help Moscow's schemes regarding us and a lot, so no.
We still need to have beneficial economic ties with countries that aren't trying to turn us into a satrapy and ways to deal with hybrid warfare style threats that Moscow is more than eager to use, don't play smartass games with me like that, stick your "neutrality" you know where.
Then, you might be able to sit on a table and negotiate with the Russians and everyone can act like adults.
"Negotiate" is such an abused word these days. We don't want to negotiate the things they want, and they don't want to negotiate the things we want.
The problem is that Poland is not seeing itself as strong, the process blem is that you guys have been told too many nasty bedtime stories about the Russians and now, with them trying to reassert themselves in their near abroad you are going ballistic.
Since when Russia does not see us as a part of their "near abroad" and if not, what stops it from seeing us as their "near abroad" again whenever convenient?
If Russians "reassert themselves in their near abroad", this obviously is also our "near abroad" if not us too, so we absolutely have good reasons to go ballistic.
It's hard to avoid noticing how you complain about Poland's attempts, real and imagined, to "reassert itself in its near abroad" and paint it as some sort of unreasonable nostalgia for past greatness... but at the same time consider Russia's far more aggressive and ambitious attempts at the same something natural that everyone should just roll with and negotiate (their surrender) to. Projection much?
I'll offer you a compromise then - i can accept that double standard, but we have to switch the standards around to the other country, how about that?
I have absolute zero tolerance for this "sphere of influence for me, not for thee" crap Russia simps try to sell. This shit is exactly why Russia has such disappointing and falling levels of soft power in the near-abroad.