[soledades]

Not even Putin is dumb enough to think that NATO presents a threat to Russia, and even he could have seen the obvious effect that an invasion would have of galvanizing the alliance.

The threat to his regime and its legitimacy is to have a democratic neighbor with russian speakers who live better lives, in what is a former colonial subject of the glorious russian empires.

NATO does make a great bogeyman though for internal audiences, to shift attention away from the futures they are deprived of by dictatorship.