[jmclnx]

Belarus will probably be reabsorbed back into Russia in the next 10 years.

I worked with many young IT people living there, when Russia invaded Ukraine, many fled to Germany with the help of the fortune 500 company I worked for. A few were even helped to move to NC here in the US.

[Arubis → jmclnx]

Setting aside Russia’s own motives, is there any way to take the temperature of Belarus’s own citizens actual preferences around this? I gather their elections have been shoddy for long enough that they’re not a proxy for actual sentiment.

[buggythebug → jmclnx]

Other than a land grab and closer proximity to Europe - what does Russia gain from this?

[Octokiddie → buggythebug]

Nuclear weapons are all about posturing. Both sides know the consequences of detonation and do everything in their power to avoid it. Thus posturing.

[tjbiddle → buggythebug]

Putin's ego and desire for the old ways.

[rkagerer]

The quality of writing in this article is terrible*.

Here's the original source: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/10/world/europe/russia-nucle...

Non-paywalled: https://web.archive.org/web/20240524013552/https://www.nytim...

(*E.g. site is misspelled "sight", author uses tautologies and doesn't always distinguish assumptions from fact, phrases like "way more" are used instead of quantifying, and some inferences just don't flow).