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War is not something that can be controlled once it breaks out. Non-aligned militaries that come into close proximity is something that's very dangerous. At t

War is not something that can be controlled once it breaks out. Non-aligned militaries that come into close proximity is something that's very dangerous. At the very least an incident between militaries can cause a diplomatic crisis or at worst start a minor war. The very presence of military forces in the Baltic is a deterrent for that reason. Also Russia has continually violated Swedens air space. Russian pilots have acted aggressively towards Swedish pilots and Russian submarines have been spotted in Swedish waters. So while Russia may not be plotting a war against Sweden, they are certainly stirring up trouble. Furthermore a war in the Baltic would be a disaster for Europe. If Russia perceives that they risk a wider war, they may back down.

zilean 10y ago
https://www.rt.com/news/346287-sweden-russian-submarine-hunt/ https://www.rt.com/news/346287-sweden-russian-submarine-hunt... Russia has nothing to gain in baltic that it doesnt have with Kaliningrad. Same goes for Ukraine w/o Crimea.
- mzs 10y ago
  Russia Today? It would be nice for Russia to have a swath from Crimea to Dontesk up through Latvia, just look at a map.
  - zilean 10y ago
    Whats wrong with RT in general (besides funding) and this article in particular? > It would be nice for Russia to have a swath from Crimea to Dontesk up through Latvia, just look at a map. Why take this land? It does nothing strategically, has population that you need to subsidise, etc. Crimea allows Black Sea control. Kaliningrad effectively makes Baltic inner sea for Russia and if there ever would be any baltic action you would see that, not many (if any) ships would be able to enter.
    - kaitnieks 10y ago
      Latvia has a population you need to subsidize? What do you mean by that?
      - zilean 10y ago
        You cant just occupy country w/o sanctions, export/import chains breaking, you need to rebuild what would be inevitably destroyed during the invasion, etc.
        mzs 10y ago
        Ukraine shows how much can be tolerated.
        zilean 10y ago
        Well, Russian economy is still in recession. And Russian forces tecchnically never fired a gun in Ukraine or Crimea.
        Steko 10y ago
        Russian forces have fired many guns in Ukraine, full stop. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/a419b994ccf14a42977665a9af966ec3/report-russians-regularly-shelled-eastern-ukraine-2014 http://bigstory.ap.org/article/a419b994ccf14a42977665a9af966...
      - vkou 10y ago
        When Russia occupied Crimea, Ukraine pulled out all support for the region's infrastructure. (Electricity, etc.) Quite naturally, Russia had to foot the bill to replace it. The only way to get around that is to seize the entire country.
    - mzs 10y ago
      connection via land to sea, later better positioned for potential Lithuania to Finland ops
- qaq 10y ago
  Russia's whole propaganda machine is predicated on having Ukraine as integral part of Russia since they base their whole value system on promoting the view that Russia is continuation of Kievan Rus which is modern day Ukraine.
  - zilean 10y ago
    Russia is also considers itself (for a quite some hundreds of years) a successor to Byzantine Empire. That does not mean that they want, would or should take any land in that direction. Ukraine is special not because Kiev has to be in Russia, but because a lot of the current Ukrainian land was for, again, some hundreds years Russian and have almost no sovereign history. That makes it easy to play by all sorts of powers and Government is really not the main one there. Just look at Alaska it never gets same attention. Or North Kazakhstan. Same would be with Ukraine in coming 50-100 years if they would be able to hold the country together.
    - qaq 10y ago
      "Or North Kazakhstan" :) you don't watch Russian news much do you?
      - zilean 10y ago
        I dont watch news much. But that doesn't stops me from getting Ukraine from all sorts of angles for a long time (you have to justify Crimea). I dont get much about NK from anyone but some ultra-right aligned personalities (but i am also getting stuff about Alaska from them, so there is that).
        qaq 10y ago
        There is no independent ultra-right it's just another face of the same ruling group. The things they declare are coordinated by Kremlin. The "crazy" talk about Ukraine that started even prior to 2004 by "ultra-right" leaders was just 1st phase of prep. I would strongly caution against dismissing their msg. because they are voiced by ultra-right.
- geoka9 10y ago
  Russia has nothing to gain by fighting any war nowadays. It fights because its leaders want to stay in power and it seems to work for now.
igivanov 10y ago
>Russian submarines have been spotted in Swedish waters. this bullshit has acquired a life of its own no matter how often it's debunked. Please educate yourself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_submarine_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_submarine_incidents there is not a single confirmed case. (But there is one from the distant USSR times.) Overall this hysteria is an excellent example of Western/Swedish propaganda. I suspect that "Russia has continually violated Swedens air space" is much of the same.
- throwaway7767 10y ago
  Russia does send military jets regularly into other countries airspace. It happens regularly over Iceland for example[0]. The lie is not in saying it happens, the lie is by omission by selectively reporting it when convenient to make it seem that it's something new or surprising. We always see these stories during periods of increased tensions, suggesting that these flights are a response to recent events, when in fact they have been a standard thing for decades. The other omission is that NATO countries (yes, I know Sweden is not in NATO, I'm talking generally here) do the same for the Russians, and western media never reports on that. I mean, it's understandable, right? The military has to be prepared for lots of different situations, and in order to properly prepare you need to know your neighbors defenses. Finding out at what point your jets get intercepted tells you a lot about what you can get away with. It would practically be negligent of them not to do it. As for the submarine issue, I'm not familiar enough with it, but I believe you are right that there are no confirmed cases in recent history. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if it's common for Russia and NATO to send subs to probe each others defenses for similar reasons. [0] http://icelandreview.com/news/2016/09/26/russian-bombers-fly-below-icelandic-jet http://icelandreview.com/news/2016/09/26/russian-bombers-fly...

zilean 10y ago

https://www.rt.com/news/346287-sweden-russian-submarine-hunt/ https://www.rt.com/news/346287-sweden-russian-submarine-hunt... Russia has nothing to gain in baltic that it doesnt have with Kaliningrad. Same goes for Ukraine w/o Crimea.

mzs 10y ago
Russia Today? It would be nice for Russia to have a swath from Crimea to Dontesk up through Latvia, just look at a map.
- zilean 10y ago
  Whats wrong with RT in general (besides funding) and this article in particular? > It would be nice for Russia to have a swath from Crimea to Dontesk up through Latvia, just look at a map. Why take this land? It does nothing strategically, has population that you need to subsidise, etc. Crimea allows Black Sea control. Kaliningrad effectively makes Baltic inner sea for Russia and if there ever would be any baltic action you would see that, not many (if any) ships would be able to enter.
  - kaitnieks 10y ago
    Latvia has a population you need to subsidize? What do you mean by that?
    - zilean 10y ago
      You cant just occupy country w/o sanctions, export/import chains breaking, you need to rebuild what would be inevitably destroyed during the invasion, etc.
      - mzs 10y ago
        Ukraine shows how much can be tolerated.
        zilean 10y ago
        Well, Russian economy is still in recession. And Russian forces tecchnically never fired a gun in Ukraine or Crimea.
        Steko 10y ago
        Russian forces have fired many guns in Ukraine, full stop. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/a419b994ccf14a42977665a9af966ec3/report-russians-regularly-shelled-eastern-ukraine-2014 http://bigstory.ap.org/article/a419b994ccf14a42977665a9af966...
    - vkou 10y ago
      When Russia occupied Crimea, Ukraine pulled out all support for the region's infrastructure. (Electricity, etc.) Quite naturally, Russia had to foot the bill to replace it. The only way to get around that is to seize the entire country.
  - mzs 10y ago
    connection via land to sea, later better positioned for potential Lithuania to Finland ops
qaq 10y ago
Russia's whole propaganda machine is predicated on having Ukraine as integral part of Russia since they base their whole value system on promoting the view that Russia is continuation of Kievan Rus which is modern day Ukraine.
- zilean 10y ago
  Russia is also considers itself (for a quite some hundreds of years) a successor to Byzantine Empire. That does not mean that they want, would or should take any land in that direction. Ukraine is special not because Kiev has to be in Russia, but because a lot of the current Ukrainian land was for, again, some hundreds years Russian and have almost no sovereign history. That makes it easy to play by all sorts of powers and Government is really not the main one there. Just look at Alaska it never gets same attention. Or North Kazakhstan. Same would be with Ukraine in coming 50-100 years if they would be able to hold the country together.
  - qaq 10y ago
    "Or North Kazakhstan" :) you don't watch Russian news much do you?
    - zilean 10y ago
      I dont watch news much. But that doesn't stops me from getting Ukraine from all sorts of angles for a long time (you have to justify Crimea). I dont get much about NK from anyone but some ultra-right aligned personalities (but i am also getting stuff about Alaska from them, so there is that).
      - qaq 10y ago
        There is no independent ultra-right it's just another face of the same ruling group. The things they declare are coordinated by Kremlin. The "crazy" talk about Ukraine that started even prior to 2004 by "ultra-right" leaders was just 1st phase of prep. I would strongly caution against dismissing their msg. because they are voiced by ultra-right.
geoka9 10y ago
Russia has nothing to gain by fighting any war nowadays. It fights because its leaders want to stay in power and it seems to work for now.

igivanov 10y ago

>Russian submarines have been spotted in Swedish waters. this bullshit has acquired a life of its own no matter how often it's debunked. Please educate yourself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_submarine_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_submarine_incidents there is not a single confirmed case. (But there is one from the distant USSR times.) Overall this hysteria is an excellent example of Western/Swedish propaganda. I suspect that "Russia has continually violated Swedens air space" is much of the same.

throwaway7767 10y ago
Russia does send military jets regularly into other countries airspace. It happens regularly over Iceland for example[0]. The lie is not in saying it happens, the lie is by omission by selectively reporting it when convenient to make it seem that it's something new or surprising. We always see these stories during periods of increased tensions, suggesting that these flights are a response to recent events, when in fact they have been a standard thing for decades. The other omission is that NATO countries (yes, I know Sweden is not in NATO, I'm talking generally here) do the same for the Russians, and western media never reports on that. I mean, it's understandable, right? The military has to be prepared for lots of different situations, and in order to properly prepare you need to know your neighbors defenses. Finding out at what point your jets get intercepted tells you a lot about what you can get away with. It would practically be negligent of them not to do it. As for the submarine issue, I'm not familiar enough with it, but I believe you are right that there are no confirmed cases in recent history. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if it's common for Russia and NATO to send subs to probe each others defenses for similar reasons. [0] http://icelandreview.com/news/2016/09/26/russian-bombers-fly-below-icelandic-jet http://icelandreview.com/news/2016/09/26/russian-bombers-fly...