Won't annexing them be costly in terms of resources rather than just keeping as puppets states? I mean doing the latter would mean Moscow does not need to spend on the reconstruction fully.
Indeed it will be costly to annex the Baltic States, they are likely to just reorganized them into a United Puppet state that is heavily reliant on Russia.
Lukashenko is likely to turn whats left of Belarus into a Federal Republic of the Russian Federation and finnaly achieve his dream of becoming a Colonel.
Ukraine would most certainly be annexed, thanks to the extremely fertile soils, the shipyards in Ukraine will also allow Russia to finally build Aircraft Carriers again.
Moldova will probably be annexed, but it will get neglected by Russia as Ukraine would take priority with the reconstruction efforts, Moldova was already poor prior to the outbreak so it will remain that way moving on.
Just curious. Is there any components that can be salvaged from these abandoned Leopard 2s, F-16s, Marder IFVs, and Patriot missile batteries? If these have been sitting abandoned for a year or so, that would mean the components would be unusable.
Depending on where it was abandoned should determine how salvageable it is, not everything will be left exposed to the elements. The best I could see salvaged from the Leopards and Marder is the internal electronics and Gunner and commander sights with the advanced thermal imaging and night vision capabilities.
The F-16's aren't really that valuable, the technologies of the Sidewinder and Amraam missile can be reversed engineered and tested on Russian Missiles, the Radar and ECM systems can be examined on the planes I guess.
The Eurofighter Typhoon, Rafale and Tornado jet would be far more interesting aircraft for the Russians to examine, it would not be surprising if the Russians take the aircraft in a similar manner to what the US did to a Libyan Mi-24 in Operation mount hope iii.
For the Patriot Missiles, Russia is likely to incorporate any useful tech it finds on them and add it into the development of the S-400 Missile system, which won't be in service till 2009.
Russia will get a lot of former Soviet equipment in the former Warsaw Pact countries. Might as well augment those MiGs, Sukhois, T-72s, Buk, Tor, S-200s, S-300s, Dvinas, Antonovs, Hinds, and Hips to their existing fleets. Yes, I would agree corrupt elements of the Russian government may want to sell American/Western components to Iran or China.
Yes that is certainly going to happen, can't let all that Eastern equipment fall into the wrong hands. I'll assume that 70% of the equipment will be put into long term storage as the need for all of that equipment is mostly gone with half of NATO destroyed by the Rage virus.
The Russians can also put up the Warsaw Pact equipment for "resale" to nations that want to operate Eastern equipment.