[trhway]

Summit in Shanghai there Xi gave ok to probe and harass NATO, immediately 20 intelligence drones 100+ miles deep into Poland, 3 fighter jets 10 minutes into Estonia airspace. (Those actions already triggered kneejerk in NATO to give first priority to beefing up NATO countries' air defenses instead of supplying air-defense systems to Ukraine).

Add to that cyberattack on the airports 3 days ago and now massive drones in European airports (when Russia has been for several months having its own airports periodically shut down by Ukranian drones and thus clearly understood such an action and how it can be used in a hybrid war and also how it can hint at capability to perform a "Pautina"(SpiderWeb) style operation against Europe) - what are the chances for the drones to not be Russian. And not forgetting cyberattack on the airports 3 days ago.

[JPLeRouzic]

> "Summit in Shanghai there Xi gave ok to probe and harass NATO"

Please could you provide a pointer, as I have never heard such a thing.

[trhway]

There is no pointer. It is an opinion consensus held widely in some narrow analytical circles. In the open China clearly stated that it will not let Russia lose. China uses Russia as a ram and the war to keep NATO, and specifically US, busy in Europe.

[vachina]

Sounds like bs

[Tankenstein]

While the motive is speculation - each event the poster pointed out happened. These are not normal events.

[1718627440]

Yet doesn't contradict public action and fits the state doctrines.

[leoh]

Nailed it

[shmerl]

Turkey taught Putin what should happen to his military airplanes that violate their airspace. Putin got the message very quickly.

Europe should do the same instead of pretending Putin will understand any weaker response.

TL;DR: shoot them down on sight.

[trhway]

I'm kind of lost in my understanding when it comes to Europe. To me it is very illustrative how the Wirecard guy (son of a KGB agent and is currently residing in Russia) while having access to key intelligence information of Germany - by virtue of for example informants and other intelligence services payments going through Wirecard - at the same time was openly having "safaris" with the Wagner group in Syria.

[mamonster]

I like how people always forget to mention that the reason as to why the plane getting shot down never resulted in an "escalation" is that Putin immediately bombed Turkish troops and killed like 30 people, at which point they both basically agreed to sweep it under the rug.

[Tankenstein]

A few additional points of context to consider:

- The "Turkey taught Putin" narrative is kind of BS. The leader of Turkey imprisoned the pilot who shot down the Russian jet, essentially saying he acted on his own. Afterwards, Turkey bought Russian military equipment. This reaction is the opposite of sovereignty.

- Speculation: Russia is looking to provoke Europe into responding. The thinking is to get Europe to focus on their own air defense, over assisting Ukraine. This is why the general, and correct, response in Europe is to keep calm and keep sending air defense equipment to Ukraine instead of freaking out. There of course are some lines where it is not possible to shrug it off, like recently in Poland, where the situation was so unsafe that we had to react with weapons. The most important element of Europe's security is that the Ukraine war does not end in a victory for Russia.

Edit: Formatting

[monerozcash]

> The leader of Turkey imprisoned the pilot who shot down the Russian jet

The pilots were arrested almost a year later, a few days after a coup attempt they were allegedly involved in.

Before that they were treated like heroes in Turkey.

[1718627440]

> Speculation ...

That would be nice for Europe, but Putin openly stated that the goal is not to conquer whole Ukraine alone, but to restore the borders of the USSR in all its glory.

[Ylpertnodi]

Why are TL;DR's always at the end of a piece?