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Comment by donogh | Hacker News Reader

That’s a good point. I visited Latvia a few years ago and was struck by how large a section of society there identifies as Russian, to the extent that in some places you were more likely to hear people speaking Russian than Latvian.

Poland would be a more difficult target to justify than the Baltics; only 0.1% of Poles speak Russian; 30% of Latvians are native Russian speakers. I could see Putin going there next.

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All three Baltic nations are NATO members. An attack on any NATO member requires a response by NATO.

So, not likely that Latvia is next.

For the sake of all of us let's hope you are right:

"‘If a war starts, they will come here first’: Latvia mounts a wary border watch"

https://www.politico.eu/article/war-russia-ukraine-latvia-mo...

>An attack on any NATO member requires a response by NATO.

I am not, even slightly, sure that this is the case anymore. Economic sanctions is as far as anyone is willing to go anymore it seems - and half-assed ones at that.

I absolutely cannot see the US, England, or any other NATO countries sending people to die in Latvia. There just is zero stomach for that in most of the world.

And people like Putin know that, is the problem, I think.

That is exactly why the situation is so dangerous. If there is even a hint that the US and the whole of NATO will not come in strong, then yes there is the possibility that he could go further.

There is another very dangerous scenario that has not been considered. A Russian inspired coup in one of the existing NATO countries with a not so small large Russian speaking population. That government then saying they want to leave NATO.

On another side, it's not even mentioned that in the middle of the war action in Ukraine, nobody seems to have noticed Putin just annexed another country, Byelorussia. The Russian troops were supposed to leave at the end of their 3 week long exercises, but they are now leaving...never.

> On another side, it's not even mentioned that in the middle of the war action in Ukraine, nobody seems to have noticed Putin just annexed another country, Byelorussia. The Russian troops were supposed to leave at the end of their 3 week long exercises, but they are now leaving...never.

Belorussia has been a Russian puppet since the collapse of the USSR, nobody's noticed it because nothing has changed.

True, but weeks ago their dictator was still trying to maintain the farse that the Russian troops were only present for exercises and would leave then. And its rumored the "referendum" planned for 3 days from now will settle it.

"Referendum on Belarus’ constitutional amendments set for 27 February" https://president.gov.by/en/events/referendum-po-vneseniyu-i...

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