> Russia will never attack NATO

You think about a frontal attack like in Ukraine, and maybe you're right. But Russia is already waging a much more subtle war against NATO. Look at who's leading the US. Look at Brexit. Or look at who could soon lead France or Germany... Their conventional army may be weak, but they don't need to fire a bullet either.

> NATO is a hundred times stronger than Ukraine,

And the might of the US/UK/etc are a hundred times stronger than the Taliban in Afghanistan, however who ended up winning that war? Or how about Vietnam?

My point being: the size/capability of a military doesn't necessarily result in a win. I think NATO forces have a particular problem of being pretty unmotivated about Ukraine winning.

I would like this to be true but I'm not sure (at least when talking about NATO = Continental Europe). A quick search reveals Russia made 41 jet fighters last year, Europe made 40.

I suspect when it comes to the production of certain kinds of advanced war materiel, like missiles, shells or drones, Europe lags or doesn't have a clear advantage.

GDP doesn't matter, despite European defense stocks benefiting majorly from the Ukraine war, this didn't seem to have translated into a similar increase in output, which indicates there are bottlenecks in the system somewhere.

> Russia will never attack NATO

You're assuming rational behavior, but time and time again world leaders have demonstrated that they will pursue erratic behavior if their feelings or vibe suggest them that behavior to be their way out of their own trouble.

You do know that wars are not “muh supurmun is bazzilion times stronger than your balk!!”?

Russia doesn’t need direct attack on NATO to intimidate, or even destroy the alliance. And even if it did attack NATO member, it is going to be guess what? A discussion. Just like what they have right now. It’s not going to be DEFCON style theatrical attack from the united West on Russia. You know what happens during WW2? When Russia and Germany carved up Poland? Nothing happened when France declared war on Germany. There was a period of 8 months where they just stared at each other. It was called “Phoney war”. Chances are we might witness Russia just steam rolling Baltics while the West talks between each other what to do next.

Drones run on diesel?

They were out of diesel before Trump's announcement.

To be fair, that they are struggling to take over a couple of villages in Ukraine is in large parts due to the intensified arms and ammunition production of the entire EU (and in the past that of the US). And that's only enough for a standstill

Large scale invasion is not likely, but they could try some limited operation to test NATO's unity. Most likely location would be somewhere in the Baltics.

I have read some Asian country's (who are friendly with Russians) government foreign affairs required readings that is like 2 year old by now. Those materials say Russia is being cornered. They had no other option to but to invade Ukraine. But with sanctions they are more cornered and are desparate. They thought China would ally would them but China's selective neutrality is making them desparate. Those documents say that Russia never actually deployed their main regiments and only worked with mercenaries and allied country armies.

No body knows how much petro product Russia is producing or who is buying them. Those diplomatic documents suggest treating simultaneously as a black box and a cornered animal. The financial sanctions actually was a double edged sword considering UK essentially blocked all foreign transactions even for international infrastructure investments Russia made to foreign countries and at the same time from a global perspective UK was not seen as a reliable financial partner. So, Russia is desparate, EU is desparate but they are not allowed to sit in a table to negotiate... Because US will not allow that. If a war happens across EU every party invovled will see this is to be positive thing because for the last decade economies has slowed down and political views has become extremely polarizing. A war at a massive scale brings everyone together for their country and economy jumpstarts.

I might struggle to occupy your garden, but how are you going to stop me from drilling holes in your house and planting lots of rats so they destroy your life and you run away yourself?

Not Europe but a few Baltic states are feasible. No one says they can hold it, but Putin has his own reasons so we should not think we can conclude on future Russian actions based on what we consider reasonable - e.g. no one predicted that a war on Ukraine was likely as it seemed to be completely irrational and self-defeating.

If nothing else, war has been many times convenient to keep regimes in power (see Bush post 9/11 for an obvious example). Putin might want to strengthen his case. See absurd discussions / push for a "Republic of Narva" as an example cause belli.

Never underestimate the stupidity and irrationality of autocratic governments. Putin also decided to invade Ukraine after all even though he should have known better.

> They are struggling to take a couple of villages in Ukraine, why would they invade the EU.

Because Russian leadership is acting in self interest and preservation and a neverending state of war might be what secures its own position and power.

Europe is rearming on the lines of the 1930s, because Russia is struggling to take a couple of villages.

They can't take Kiev but they're threatening Paris.

They cannot win, but they can invade. We're already in a hybrid war. The threat is real and Europe needs to be prepared and be able to stand on its own, especially now that also the US is not only directly threatening EU countries, but is acting against EU security both globally and internally by supporting separatist neo-Nazi pro-Putin parties.