With a puppet in the White House and an indecisive Europe, it makes perfect sense. And he’ll also get away with it. The Baltics will go first - Europe will not do a single thing other than spin up a few committees.

What rubbish - only fools will believe that Russia has an interest in starting a nuclear WW3. Historically, Russia has never militarily attacked any NATO country. (And most of the NATO countries are already militarily weaker than Russia - what has stopped NATO's or Russia's military adventurism, against each other, is the fear of the nuclear weapons that both sides have). Since the cold war ended Russia has only tried to become part of the west. There wouldn't be a European Union if Russia hadn't voluntarily left East Germany and acceded to its re-unification. Naive Gorbachev (and even a political fool, I would venture) and a drunk Yeltsin bent over backwards to accommodate many western demands that encroached on Russia's sphere of influence, and even diminished it, in the hope of earning their trust.

The Anglo-Americans didn't want an independent and united Europe, with Russia a part of it, because it undermines their own influence in the region. The future will judge them poorly for it because what could have been a region of peace and prosperity, post-USSR, could now be the arena for yet another WW.