President Vladimir Putin on Friday accused NATO member Poland of having territorial ambitions in the former Soviet Union, and said any aggression against Russia's neighbour and close ally Belarus would be considered an attack on Russia.
I think after Poland ignored two Russian missiles, putin is thinking to use Wagner from Belarus to test and see what will happen if NATO country gets attacked. The normal answer would be that it would be war between Belarus and NATO. Which should be fairly quick. He is trying to tip the scale by saying Russia will be also back Belarus if attacked (BTW Hitler also stated WW2 claiming Poland attacked Nazi Germany), hoping that NATO won't back up Poland.
I'm going off the deep end a bit here, but reports started off with two missiles. I thought it must have been a Ukrainian AA missile chasing a Russian cruise missile, with the Russian missile responsible for the deaths.
Then news suddenly shut up about the second missile, and started selling it as one Ukrainian missile.
I wouldn't be surprised it was covered up so NATO didn't get tested.
Thing is, every line Russia has drawn in the sand, accession to NATO, arms supplies to Ukraine etc have been proven to be empty words. Russia has backed off each time.
An attack on Poland from Belarus would quickly lead to an invasion from Poland. Securing Ukraine's northern border would free up a lot of Ukrainian resources and would put NATO soldiers in another neighboring country to Russia.
It would be suicide for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.