Or, let Taiwain into it. Since those are in NATO, there are no legitimate reasons to keep Taiwan out

There is a saying in Russia: "It's a pity that everyone who knows how to properly run the state is already working in a taxi."

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I'm not sure what ramifications would belligerent status bring to this, but pretty sure we're at the stage where neither Russia nor US would care about legalities much.

Iran has some disputed Islands in the straight of Hormuz and can claim 20km if internal waters around them, they threaten to close it every few years. Strait is only like 25km at it's narrowest, and Iran has a lot of land exposure around it Plus conveniently a third of the world's liquefied natural gas and almost 25% of total global oil consumption passes through the strait. If Iran gets its hands on some hyper sonic missiles, that can easily take out an aircraft carrier, that might be enough to change it's math to perhaps partial blocking of US military. China getting few hyper sonic missiles (which can take out an airfield) would instantly nullify billions in fighter jets and patriot missiles sold to Taiwan. Seeing how Ukraine is the most corrupt country in Europe, and with it loosing around 20% of its land to Russia i'd guess thousands of javelins, NLAWs and MANPADS can easily find their way to battle grounds where US is involved. Bottom line there are a lot of painful points Russia can escalate at in retaliation, and of course run away escalations lead from cold wars to hot nuclear ones.

Russia indicated that Ukraine was a red line for it, and cornered they really have no better option but to escalate, EU clearly indicating that it doesn't care much for the conflict and just wants it to go away, so we're only left with US still pushing it. Regardless of what happens (short of nuke war) Russia knows that it'll be warm (with gas/oil) and fed (grain) this winter, such certainties don't exist for EU. Knowing that, i just don't see how any escalation can make Russia capitulate, admit a loss and return to long term ruined economy, political unrest, shortages in high tech sectors (and most likely full collapse). That's why I'm confused of US end goal with such semi (but not too far) escalations, surely the expectation can't be of Russia folding and willingly collapsing, guess that's why Kissinger said what he said.

Today, the European Commission is presenting to the Council its outline for a comprehensive plan of economic support to a future democratic Belarus. The plan, of up to €3 billion, reflects the European Union's commitment to support the Belarusian people's wishes for a peaceful democratic transition in the country following the Presidential elections of August 2020, which were neither free nor fair.

Once Belarus embarks on a democratic transition, the EU will activate the €3 billion package, a mix of grants and loans leveraging public and private investments, to help Belarus to stabilise its economy, reform its institutions to make them more democratic and help increase the economy's resilience, growth potential and job creation.

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Now to still try and make it work US need to continue to escalate the conflict (first Javelin will be a game changer, MANPADS, then Switchblades, then much needed M777 howitzers, now even more desperately needed HIMARS, next will be ) and as you previously noted everything comes at a cost. Where does that leave Russia, either sit back and do nothing or since US is setting a precedent that selling long range missiles is now acceptable practice and doesn't make you a party to a conflict, Russia can starts selling latest anti-air and anti-ship missiles to Iran, how much do you think it'd take for them to close the straight of Hormuz?
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Turkey, Italy and Greece are connected to the Atlantic ocean through the mediterranean sea.

Well Taiwan is also connected to the Atlantic ocean through some body of water   don't get tied up on semantics, you need to see the forest behind the trees. Surely if US would deem in beneficial, adding the + to NATO+ is the least of the problems.

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While we're at it, let's invade Luxembourg, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, and North Macedonia on the grounds of them being illegitimate NATO members because "Atlantic".

It can't possibly have anything to do with the fact that countries near Russia have suffered its invasions and occupations including the 50-70 years of brutal soviet totalitarian regime that's still in living history. Nah, it has to be some conspiracy from the evil West.

... Russia had to conquer Finland to "denazify" it

Do you know what NATO stands for? North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Now, where is Taiwan located? Answer me.
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Why would US let RF prosper, especially considering it's proximity to China? You know what powerful nations want right? That combination is too dangerous and needs to be stopped at its infancy. Much easier to kneecap RF, take Ukraine out of it's sphere of influence and then it'd be great if that could sustain itself by forcing RF to continue to sell its resources to EU through Ukraine (so UA gets paid transit fees). That's the benefit of having a pact, on top of that you can freeze RF assets and bankrupt it anytime you wish. (That is unless they decide to stop playing such game for some reason)

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 The beauty of that is that there is no way Russia can do anything about it they just cannot compete on the soft power field.
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 Only options for Russia is sit back and keep loosing countries in its sphere of influence and ultimately be torn apart, or radicalize become a dictatorship and switch the playing field to hard power.
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It's easier said than done! When the import of a country is down, it means two things -

1. The country is on the way of becoming independent
2. Their forex reserves are saved from being depleted faster

These are the indicators of a strong economy and not a weak one. Russia has been supplying around 14% of world's oil and gas requirement since long. So it is not very easy to make them bend down in the face of sanctions.

Most hilariously when the sanctions have been imposed by a country responsible for most number of wars in the history of humankind.

The world must end of dollar dominance which gives US an upper hand on almost everything.

I don't see Nutella here, so it looks like a fake.

The EU-wide ban will affect oil that arrives by sea - around two-thirds of imports - but not pipeline oil, following opposition from Hungary.

Poland and Germany have also pledged to end pipeline imports, meaning a total of 90% of Russian oil will be blocked.

European Council chief Charles Michel said the deal cut off a huge source of financing for the Russian war machine.

It is part of a sixth package of sanctions approved at a summit in Brussels, which all 27 member states have had to agree on.

It has been over two months Russia attacked Ukraine, sanctions followed, but the war is still two months old and counting, more sanctions are still being prepared i am sure, but honestly it does not look like it has had the type of impact the Eu and other countries thought it would have, Russia are still going on with the war, meaning they are still doing their economic business fine, maybe not as well as before, but they will be happy it is not just them that is suffering from their actions, but a lot of other countries. It is getting to that point that we must have to agree that sanctions can't end this war, or force Russia to stop, something more stringent has to be done.

Why don’t you say in your reasoning that the Central Bank of the Russian Federation has already lowered the rate twice, most recently by 3%, and now the key rate in Russia is 11% with a tendency to further decrease? Why don't you also say that Russia, unlike Western countries, has a very small debt burden and the issue of debt refinancing is not too acute?

Give me the name of the Russian POW who was stabbed in the eye, and the name of the Ukrainian serviceman who did that while the POW was in the custody of the Ukrainian army. Time and place, please.

Patience, patience.  It's  virtue, you know?  Trials for capital offenses take time, as they should given the punishment options available.  No need to hurry this stuff.  The Russians have all the time in the world.

When the earlier POW killings were first distributed, I figured that it was a pretty strong possibility that it was a Russian psy-op to develop support back home (which it did.)  Later on, as more info about the unbelievable evil that the ZioNazis were capable of came to the fore, I changed my mind and now figure it's more likely than not that this stuff went on and that it probably wasn't even a terribly rare one-off event.

I have already said before that Putin's first offer is usually the most beneficial for partners. If they do not agree to it, then a worse offer follows
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Really?

Like this:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5400804.0

What do you base your claims on?

Japan, italy, spain, greece and france. Are all too far into debt to donate funds to ukraine.

Eventually the united states will be as well.

What happens then? When russia still has low debt and can afford to mobilize.

The united states spent more than $12 trillion dollars on military operations in the middle east. Eventually that money runs out and nations cannot defend themselves (or ukraine) without bankrupting their budget.

While the U.S. ranks as the world's largest economy with a GDP of $21 trillion,2 Russia's nominal GDP comes in at $1.48 trillion. 1 In terms of GDP, Russia trails much smaller countries, such as the United Kingdom, Italy, and France.

It seems Russia doesn't care about Facebook videos at all and continues to advance,
despite all been dead from hunger, deserting, suiciding, not having gas, losing 200 tanks per day,
not to forget deadly ill Putin, who will be overthrown any moment, by angry russians because
their ruble is worth only $0.00000000000001 and falling

In the homeland of democracy in ancient Greece, each democrat had several slaves. Modern Western democracy is not far from its progenitor. Winston Churchill once said that: “democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried”. I do not idealize Putin, but you do not idealize Western democracy either, whose welfare is based on the robbery of former colonies.
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Well, then Russia will have to liberate, in addition to Donbass, Germany or Japan.

Two thousand years ago, the famous Republic had a chance to reject a dangerous populist. It failed, and the rest is history

Severodonetsk taken.

After the surrender of Azov in Marupol, the resistance of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Donbass was actually broken, it became easier to take cities.

"Don't threaten if you can't deliver - that's a sign of weakness."

... we will seek to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine and put to justice ...

Here is a map illustrating 32,000 air raids the UK sustained during World War II.



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