The two-month-long military buildup and mobilization around Ukraine.

The Russians have a unique formation known as a Battalion tactical group(BTG). It's a reinforced battalion with 600-1000 troops and has an artillery battalion of its own along with Electronic warfare assets. It's a deadly unit that can direct accurate artillery fire on an enemy position within 10 seconds of discovery.

The BTGs aren't the full extent of Russian land combat power but the leading edge of it. It's expensive to keep entire brigades and divisions fully combat-ready, so they keep these BTGs for rapid deployment.

Russia has 160 such BTGs and 120 BTGs have been assembled on the Ukrainian border. That means a minimum of 100,000 combat troops and add in support troops, the number easily reaches 170,000-190,000. The Russians have also focused 500 combat aircraft, nearly half their airpower, and a majority of SAM battalions around Ukraine. The LNDR republics add a further 15,000 or so troops. The Russian national guard adds tens of thousands of troops as well, to perform occupation duties, and there is the large and formidable black sea fleet.

Altogether, the Russians have massed some 400,000 personnel around Ukraine. This amount of power is way, way greater than what you'd need to defend Luhansk and Donetsk. The Ukrainian army is pitiful and has little offensive capability. The Russian forces normally stationed near Ukraine were more than capable of defeating any Ukrainian invasion of the Donbas.

If the intention was merely to defeat Ukrainian aggression in the two oblasts, there would be no need to assemble such a titanic force. Certainly no need for the national guard which is only useful as a policing force in occupied areas. And by no means would they need to assemble 30,000 troops along the Belarus-Ukraine. The rationale behind assembling troops in Belarus is obvious, it's to go for Kiev and bypass the Dneiper river on which Ukraine stakes its defenses.

If the Russians merely wanted Donetsk and Luhansk, they would move forces near it. They would not assemble most of their ground power along a 3000 km front. They would not assemble tactical ballistic missiles that can strike deep into Ukraine. They would not stockpile millions of tons of supplies and ammunition all across the 3000 kilo front, they'd merely assemble it near Donetsk and Luhansk.

The reason is pretty obvious: Putin wants to reconquer Ukraine and reunite all the Russian lands into one great Russian state. He is an avid follower of Solzhenytsin and Solzhenytsin's vision was a union of the three Russian brothers(Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine) and Kazakhstan into a unitary Russian state. Putin has expressly shown his support for this venture in his July 2021 article on the historical oneness of Ukrainians and Russians.

It's amusing. Jewish neocons, Ukrainian nationalists, Anglo libs, and Russian libs for years foamed at the mouth about Russian irredentism and Putin's desire to rebuild the Russian Empire. Now that the actual event is staring them in the face, they've fallen into disbelief.

Putin wouldn't dare, it's just to flex muscles, to come to an agreement with NATO they say. This is exactly how Stalin behaved in the months before the German invasion or Saddam in the months before the American invasion. Delusional coping.

The reality is that the West can't really do anything to save Ukraine and their impotence is being laid bare. This is why the think tank glowies and journos are screaming angry denials.

They cried wolf for decades and now the wolf is actually at the door.