It's working out fine for 'us,' mostly. Putin has exhausted his only card though, the energy card, which was used to give Russia's economy a jump; now there's n

It's working out fine for 'us,' mostly. Putin has exhausted his only card though, the energy card, which was used to give Russia's economy a jump; now there's no follow-up maneuver. The Russian people have of course started to take notice of that fact. Russia is an increasingly inconsequential regional power, with a relatively weak and small economy (now smaller than Canada; about to be smaller than Australia). Generally they pose zero threat to the US and Western Europe in their present form; at least so long as NATO remains intact. Their military is weak and broken, they can't afford to maintain it properly - much less upgrade it - so they've shifted to magic scary super weapon propaganda and PR desperation. It's Belarus and Ukraine primarily at issue, not Poland. Poland is doing great overall, they've almost entirely left Russia's orbit in terms of overt influence. Their economic output per capita is beginning to embarrass Russia, it's now 50% higher than Russia's figure (that gap will increase). Poland is starting to push into the upper tier of the middle income nations, with a real shot at leaving that group and moving into the upper economic tier in the next two decades, along with the Baltic states. Russia can't do much to countries like Poland, the Baltics or eg Romania. They know that of course. They can and will persistently, aggressively mess with Belarus (forced union) and Ukraine (constantly seek to destabilize & split it) however. In Russia's ideal world, they keep those two nations impoverished beneath Russia's economic level, so that Russia can perpetually lord over them; then given enough time figure out a way to de facto annex all or a lot of their territory. The people running Russia - including Putin - believe that is all really Russian territory.