Putin can't possibly think he'll win if the West as a whole goes to war with him, right? If he does, he's crazy enough to think he can win a nuclear war.
It's all covert stuff for a reason. He knows that Western countries won't respond with nukes against covert actions, especially if those covert actions are indirectly meant to prop up the pro-Putin parties in those countries.
That's why, although I'm in no way a fan of Macron, I love that he has put the idea out of at the very least starting to put boots on the ground.
At the end of that war, we can not permit it to be in the form of Ukraine losing even an inch of landmass. Because then in 5-10 years, Putin will just do the same thing again, maybe not in Ukraine, but elsewhere.
The only way to stop Putins madness is by making every thing he does cost him dearly.
Not necessarily. NATO only gets involved if one of the members are fighting a defensive war, which this would not be, and the member in question specifically requests help.
Yes, but that is irrelevant. France involving themselves opens them up to retaliation from Russia. If Russia retaliated against France, and even if not strictly required to by Article 5, it is likely other NATO countries would join the conflict.
Yeah, but Russia won't retaliate, because it knows that. Russia committing genocide opened them up to retaliatory actions like this. I'm under no illusion that France is only there to protect its geopolitical ambitions against those of Russia, but Russia gave them a justification, escalated the conflict in a way.