What else could they do? After trying for eight years to negotiate with the West a solution for the civil war in Ukraine and for a rethinking of the security architecture in Europe in a way that doesn't existentially threaten Russia with NATO missile systems on its largest and most vulnerable border? What could they do after warning the West for twenty plus years to stop expanding NATO as that expansion threatens to destabilize the entire European security situation? What else could they do when NATO by 2022 had built up a huge army in Ukraine poised to invade the Donbass republics and unleash Kiev's Nazis to cause a bloodbath, seeking revenge upon the rebels who resisted them for eight years? What could they do when the Kiev regime states it would ethnically cleanse millions of Russians from their homes? When the Kiev regime openly and repeatedly announces its intent to conquer Crimea next after subduing the Donbass? What could they do when Zelensky goes to the Munich security conference and announces that his Nazi regime intends to acquire nuclear weapons and the collective West just sits there and applauds?
As for your second question, i honestly don't know. And i don't think the Russians knew for sure either. That is the kind of thing that you can only really know once you try it. Militarily it would definitely have been easier. Economically however... The Russians themselves were surprised at how well their economy withstood these post 2022 sanctions. I think they fully expected to take a much bigger hit even after all of the preparations they had made. But they were ready to accept that hit because by 2022 they had no other choice. I don't know how politically viable would it have been to go into a full scale economic war with the West with the much weaker economic situation eight years prior, a situation in which they were still heavily dependent on the West. Would their population have accepted to bear the economic crisis if they weren't yet convinced that their government had tried every other possible solution to resolve the problem diplomatically? Or would that have played right into the hands of the West causing mass discontent and a fall of the government?
I'm not an expert on these kinds of military questions and i'm sure someone with more knowledge of how the Russian military establishment sees the situation could give a more qualified answer but here's my understanding at the moment:
It is a well known fact that both Sweden and Finland were already de facto integrated into NATO for a long time before they officially joined. Their accession was a formality that actually simplified Russian defensive planning in the Leningrad military district.
In practical terms Sweden joining is pretty meaningless as it poses no threat to Russia. And due to geography the Finish border is a much more defensible one than the Ukrainian one, plus Finland itself is kind of a nothing burger in terms of military capabilities.
Finland is a very sparsely populated country whose main population clusters are all concentrated on the southern coast, easy for Russia to reach, and it's not much of an industrial powerhouse either. Nothing compared to the military potential of Ukraine, whose army prior to 2022 had grown to massive proportions and still had huge stocks of Soviet armament, and, had it not been ruined by three decades of kleptocratic corruption, a large industrial, technological and military-industrial base inherited from the Soviet Union. Now Ukraine has been mostly demilitarized (minus the NATO drip feed that keeps them on life support) but before it was a real problem.
And though i'm sure that Russia would have preferred that both Finland and Sweden stay neutral - after all Russia had good relations with neutral Finland for many decades, and additional NATO military installations in Finland will require some reorientation and strengthening of the forces in that direction to counter NATO deployments - it's not nearly as big of a threat as a NATO Ukraine would have been.
But most importantly Finland is not and was not engaged in bombing ethnic Russians or building up an army to invade Russian territory. In short Ukraine is a vital interest to Russia, Finland is not, and Sweden just doesn't matter at all.
What else could they do? After trying for eight years to negotiate with the West a solution for the civil war in Ukraine and for a rethinking of the security architecture in Europe in a way that doesn't existentially threaten Russia with NATO missile systems on its largest and most vulnerable border? What could they do after warning the West for twenty plus years to stop expanding NATO as that expansion threatens to destabilize the entire European security situation? What else could they do when NATO by 2022 had built up a huge army in Ukraine poised to invade the Donbass republics and unleash Kiev's Nazis to cause a bloodbath, seeking revenge upon the rebels who resisted them for eight years? What could they do when the Kiev regime states it would ethnically cleanse millions of Russians from their homes? When the Kiev regime openly and repeatedly announces its intent to conquer Crimea next after subduing the Donbass? What could they do when Zelensky goes to the Munich security conference and announces that his Nazi regime intends to acquire nuclear weapons and the collective West just sits there and applauds?
As for your second question, i honestly don't know. And i don't think the Russians knew for sure either. That is the kind of thing that you can only really know once you try it. Militarily it would definitely have been easier. Economically however... The Russians themselves were surprised at how well their economy withstood these post 2022 sanctions. I think they fully expected to take a much bigger hit even after all of the preparations they had made. But they were ready to accept that hit because by 2022 they had no other choice. I don't know how politically viable would it have been to go into a full scale economic war with the West with the much weaker economic situation eight years prior, a situation in which they were still heavily dependent on the West. Would their population have accepted to bear the economic crisis if they weren't yet convinced that their government had tried every other possible solution to resolve the problem diplomatically? Or would that have played right into the hands of the West causing mass discontent and a fall of the government?
There is something that I wonder though. If Russia wanted to protect their borders so much, why they did allow Finland and Sweden to join NATO?
I'm not an expert on these kinds of military questions and i'm sure someone with more knowledge of how the Russian military establishment sees the situation could give a more qualified answer but here's my understanding at the moment:
It is a well known fact that both Sweden and Finland were already de facto integrated into NATO for a long time before they officially joined. Their accession was a formality that actually simplified Russian defensive planning in the Leningrad military district.
In practical terms Sweden joining is pretty meaningless as it poses no threat to Russia. And due to geography the Finish border is a much more defensible one than the Ukrainian one, plus Finland itself is kind of a nothing burger in terms of military capabilities.
Finland is a very sparsely populated country whose main population clusters are all concentrated on the southern coast, easy for Russia to reach, and it's not much of an industrial powerhouse either. Nothing compared to the military potential of Ukraine, whose army prior to 2022 had grown to massive proportions and still had huge stocks of Soviet armament, and, had it not been ruined by three decades of kleptocratic corruption, a large industrial, technological and military-industrial base inherited from the Soviet Union. Now Ukraine has been mostly demilitarized (minus the NATO drip feed that keeps them on life support) but before it was a real problem.
And though i'm sure that Russia would have preferred that both Finland and Sweden stay neutral - after all Russia had good relations with neutral Finland for many decades, and additional NATO military installations in Finland will require some reorientation and strengthening of the forces in that direction to counter NATO deployments - it's not nearly as big of a threat as a NATO Ukraine would have been.
But most importantly Finland is not and was not engaged in bombing ethnic Russians or building up an army to invade Russian territory. In short Ukraine is a vital interest to Russia, Finland is not, and Sweden just doesn't matter at all.