I used to watch Denys quite a bit but got too political on his channel. He presents great information though about the war in Ukraine.
Putin has violated NATO airspace 4 times this week, the latest being with MIGS for 12 minutes. I'm not sure if he is trying to cause confusion, testing our response or trying to bait NATO into a war.
Either way, I think the situation is becoming more dangerous by the week.
If I had to hazard a guess, I'd lean towards testing the response.
He knows NATO isn't going to respond so aggressively that it'd risk escalation to a real Russia / NATO war (or force him to explicitly threaten a nuclear response to save face), so it's a relatively low risk strategy to assess readiness and resolve. Effectively, is NATO frightened that Russia will
actually escalate to a nuclear exchange, and can NATO be bullied accordingly.
Combined with the ongoing (so far pretty weak) response by the current US administration, I suspect that the outcome of these little games will play into his willingness (or not) to come to the table over Ukraine and what demands he's willing to make in those discussions.
If NATO does shoot down some aircraft, step up patrols, signal their intent to respond definitively to future provocation, then clearly NATO isn't that worried about Russia, the nuclear threat isn't a winning hand, and chances are Putin doesn't have much leverage to pressure NATO nations. It might also give Putin a sense of how likely it is that NATO might increase their aid in that conflict to the level of direct military intervention if he doesn't negotiate.
On the other hand, if NATO's response to this sort of provocation is weak, then clearly the nuclear threat
is a winning hand, Putin
does have some leverage, and the calculus changes.
If it were in my control, I would be responding as detailed in option 1 above. Line in the sand, show some resolve, but still taking a purely defensive stance and not escalating beyond that. It shows Putin what the rules are, without backing him into a corner where he might have to escalate in turn to preserve his own authority.
