That doesn't stop them from sending people into the meat grinder every day and bombing civilians every night. There are still many lives lost and ruined. Don't take this threat lightly.

People keep thinking Russia would attack in order to conquer and occupy Europe for some reason. I doubt that would be the plan.

Russian economy is focused on weapon production now. Changing this focus would take time and cost a lot of money. Instead of doing that they can keep manufacturing weapons and send couple hundred thousand of their people to die in another war. Any direct attack on EU member would most likely send the entire block into recession. China could buy a lot of oil from Russia and help their economy in other ways in exchange for that favor.

Basically the fear is that another war is the easiest and best way to keep Russian economy running. The only cost would be more dead Russians and Putin doesn't care about those.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces was small prior to 2014 but they grew it substantially after Russia snapped up Crimea and sent the little green men to fight them in the east which is part of why they were much more prepared for the renewed invasion efforts than they had been eight years prior. This is not to say that Russia stands a chance against NATO but it is to say that Ukraine presently has a very large and powerful army even compared to leading European powers at this point. Zelensky said France presently has about 200k men in the military while Ukraine had at that time some 980k men in the military, and Ukraine are spending many tens of billions of dollars on the military also.

Poland remembers, that's why.

They threaten the UK, France, Germany, etc for their internal audience, not the external one. To a middle class Russian (the target audience), those are "the west", great empires, powerful players in the great game of geopolitics. It's an empty affirmation to Russian citizens that they're still at the big boy table. It would look bad internally threatening "weak Poland" without following through.

That doesn't change or connect at all with the actual danger of an invasion. Before the full-scale war with Ukraine, Russia was "trying to negotiate between Ukraine and separatists", they weren't saber rattling. They quietly put their troops on the border for a "training exercise", denied they were preparing for an invasion despite the British screaming from the rooftops, and then went in.

Specifically about Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia: yes, they're in more danger than Poland, but an attack on them would pull Poland in. Poland sees an attack on them to be fundamentally the same as an attack on Poland.

I think in part because they know Poland will actually punch back, others will continue to play spy games and PR crap. Poland is ready to punch

I don't know about NATO in general, but the Polish government, and the people largely too, seem genuinely convinced the US will help in case of a Russian attack.

The best it can count on is EU support, assuming any attack occurs before the next anti-EU government is in office. Afterwards... it's not looking good.