They’d dearly like to punish Belarus. They don’t dare attack Russia directly because taking a nuclear blast to the face is not fun or profitable but they could be deranged enough to think Russia wouldn’t really use nukes to protect Belarus.

And as to intervening. They’ve invested a lot. It’s not just give-aways to the arms manufacturers and swapping out old stocks for new better, more profitable ones for the conflicts to come and spending a little coin to bleed Russia to try and weaken them. It’s the fact Ukraine has sold itself to western capital and if Russia takes it entirely or forces a capitulation to its own terms, such things might be annulled or ignored and at any rate if it goes back into Russia’s sphere it will be very hard to enforce such things. So invading even part of it as “peacekeeping” could be hedging their bets to make sure they still walk away from the board with something no matter what.

What’s dangerous is they could be betting that they could push the lines right back up to the territories that Russia annexed after a legal vote in them, declare Russia can have those but everything else is off limits and then proceed to not dismantle Ukrainian intelligence and allow them to continue conducting terrorist attacks deep into Russia and into the annexed new Russian territories while allowing them to hide under the NATO overcoat. Russia might suspect as much and doing so thusly could put us directly into a conflict between Russia and NATO at which point the chances Russia makes good on its warning and uses nuclear weapons increase. It’s a very dangerous and dicey situation. I think Russia understands it can’t just grind at the front forever and has to undertake an offensive to take Kiev or at least push further in and really put the screws to the Nazi fascist regime there.

Because the terrorism by fascists and their liberal stooges is what this is all about. It’s why Russia moved into Ukraine in the first place, it’s what set off this larger conflict because Ukraine couldn’t stop its Nazi battalions from committing genocide against Russian speakers and because they kept shelling and dropping bombs and trying to blow up bridges in Crimea. It’s what the US wants more of, a destabilized region on Russia’s borders, western/Ukrainian intelligence cells and their groomed Russian liberal agents. They can’t fight Russia directly but they can fund and fuel an insurgency, terrorist attacks deep into Russia, try and convince the Russian people they’re unsafe with Putin around and only getting rid of him for some more pliable puppet will bring them safety. Meanwhile it also encourages a brain drain as non-ideological and liberal types seek to flee a place beset by terrorism and still under heavy sanctions for the better paying, safer west. Much as how the west plundered Russia of many of its brilliant people in the 90s because of the situation of deprivation and misery after the fall of the Soviet Union.