Thumpalumpacus
Major
NATO states had shipped increasingly weapons to the Ukraine already before Putin's attack on February. This and the prevailing intention of NATO and the Ukraine viewing onto even a closer cooperation with each other, was what gave Putin the reason to justify his expansion dreams.
The shipment of weapons is found nowhere in Putin's justifications. Look at the fulminating speech he gave on the brink of the war -- no mention of NATO shipping weapons, only mention of Ukraine representing an existential threat and vowing to block its accession to NATO and reincorporate it into Russia.
So sorry, I disagree with you that this is germane to my point about arms shipments by a neutral being an act of war. It's not.
I suspect (I might be very wrong) Putin in his initial attack only used in vast majority secondary and conscript units (mixed with some elite units) hoping for an easy victory.
Continued weapon deliveries from NATO (if Russia holds a far more effective conventional force in reserve) might get him to use those and even achieve a broad consent in
doing so by the population.
Regards
Jagdflieger
The vast majority of Russian ground forces are conscripts serving one-year