Thanks for the follow up piece. I have thousands of Russian friends in real life and on both Russian and Western social media channels. Lost quite a few too(but less than I expected, mind you many accounts have become dormant since the start of the war). Among those active accounts I see people I know, people I like, say the wildest things about bio labs in Ukraine, Ukraine with NATO were hours away from a nuclear strike on Moscow but clever Putin launched the special military operation and foiled their plan...Yada Yada. These particular people, and tens of millions of them exist in Russia, believe absolutely that Russia is the victim here. And if Wagner attacks somebody and NATO responds- it will be NATO attacked unprovoked.

We saw plenty of " it is not us, it is somebody else" in Syria and even though powers that be knew who was responsible- it is hard to act against that narrative with military force. Gadaffi broadcasted he would go door to door and do genocide and the west wouldn't be able to stop him- that got an immediate response. Assad denies everything and the response is lukewarm. Part of the reason we did little with Georgia, Crimea and MH17. And remember with Crimea and Donbas it was little green men buying uniforms from military disposal stores- not Russian regular army and GRU...until months later when those units got medals.

So just imagine a possible scenario. Prigozhin attacks a neighbour or seizes territory. We already know Prigozhin is mad and Russia will say we can't control him, we can send in troops( peacekeepers) to stop him etc...meanwhile exactly none of this or a very different version of this will be played to Russian domestic audiences.

Once facts are on the ground, Russian regular army can come in as peacekeepers and a far away technologically weak Taliban is one thing- but NATO would be arguing for days whether article 5 should be invoked and some in NATO urging caution and diplomacy. If the Russian army massed on the border and attacked. Article 5 would be both guaranteed and also immediate. That difference or the expectations in Russia and in Poland that there could be a difference- is what can unsettle Poland and the Baltic states.