Okay, I'm about to go into rant/thread mode, trying to piece things together. I want this to be a thread of discourse I can consult later. And I may be wrong/misinformed! But #Russia put bounties out on US...

soldiers. Meanwhile, US/Germany relations have deteriorated and while we're still allies (far as I'm aware), @realDonaldTrump has made it a point to antagonize them and move out nearly 10 thousand military personnel stationed in Germany. Overall our relations feel strained/weaker

The plan is to move 1000 of those 10K troops to supplement the 4500 stationed in Poland. The rest will move to Belgium, Italy, or back home to the US. On the surface this seems to be a good idea. Put troops closer to Russia to deter invasion, right? I'm not certain though

First moving 1000 troops is just... nothing really. Not in this day and age. 5500 troops isn't deterrence material.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/22/europe/europe-us-troop-movement-analysis-intl-hnk/index.html

Basically this: The last time troops were moved out of Germany, Russia annexed Crimea. Moving more troops hurts the theater of war operations. Putting troops in Italy affects our response time if something occurs in, as Nick Reynolds says, SE Europe

Never mind that this move will cost an estimated billions of dollars. Additionally, said US troops could actually be in more danger of Russian offensive attacks, as they might be at the epicenter of one

Basically, the stationing of troops in Germany works because Germany is the nexus point.

A vocal critic of Putin's administration and the corruption therein suffers poisoning from a nerve agent that is noted to be Russian-made/based. Alexei Navalny. He is alive, but it's suspect in that Vlad's opposition is very nearly killed and all he has to say about it is shrug

Donald Trump rants on and on about a rigged election and how Ukraine was involved (in 2016 at least) and continues to do so now (says rigged in general). Yet he says nothing about the hack and tries to deflect blame on to China when top military experts/the Sec. of State Pompeo

say that it was pretty clearly Russia. These hacks have infiltrated DHS, the Treasury, Commerce, and State systems. Compromised does not even begin to really describe it.

Throw in his abysmal response to the Covid crisis -- which could just be his own incompetence in general -- & the (generally) inept response by Congress & what it seems like to me is that Vlad is planning to geopolitically weaken Germany, and our relations,

in a bid to invade/destabilize Poland. Bc think about it. Our soldiers are hunted for $$, they're moved out of a country that could respond to an invasion, our nuclear weapons agencies are hacked & compromised and so our deterrence effectiveness is weakened. Then our economy is

in shambles due to massive unemployment and a health crisis. I hope I'm wrong. I'll be digging more into this. At the moment it does feel like

But it does seem to be a prelude to the start of a genuine WW3, or at least Russia having its hands up Trump's ass for their own geopolitical aims. So even if we don't have WW3, I worry that the next few years/this decade will see Poland suffer. #RussianHack #Russia