I wouldn't go long defense because defense stocks already got a bump and US won't respond militarily anyway even though there is pressure to do so from the military industrial complex and mainstream media.
If the US and EU don't respond, Putin will take more countries. The US and EU will have to respond if Putin really takes Ukraine. All depends of how far Putin will go (if he will really invade Ukraine, which is not sure at all). Putin can have massive personal losses too. He is stealing already for decades billions that Russia receives from oil, gas , and all the rest. That can cost him (and his friends oligarchs) billions. Gas deliveries go for 75% to Europe, and Putin needs that money to run the country as the EU sales are responsible for over 50% of the budget that Russia needs to function. There are no pipelines to China at this moment that can replace the EU sales. So a confrontation with US/EU/NATO will only result in losses on both sides.
Russia needs US/EU technology to operate their gas fields, they don't have the knowledge to do that themselves. Nordstream2 was not build by Russians, but by EU/US companies. Russia does not have the equipment or the knowledge for that. When the US forced a Swiss company to stop building the pipeline, the Russian had to stop building. They were lucky that the final missing part was not high tech, so they could solved that problem. But it took a long time and lots of money for them. All Russians who can afford it, buy cars from outside Russia, yachts, computers, washing machines, french cheese and wine, champagne, beauty products... all comes from abroad. Russia has no real industrial complex for these things and every attempt till today was a failure.
This war is not just about who has the biggest army. It will cause an avalanche of other problems for either side.
Putin had a traumatic experience when the Berlin wall fell and Russia lost many satellite countries. It was a nightmare for him. Because of this trauma Putin wants to go in history as the president that made Russia great again. That explaines why he tries to take back other countries (like Crimea, and now also probably Belarus...)
Where did I hear that before? Make a country great again?
Putin is afraid to take Ukraine. What happens at this moment is not his usual way of doing if he really wants to take Ukraine. He takes by surprise if he wants to do something. But until today he did just the opposite. Now he is showing everything in public and is already hesitating months to do anything. He is bluffing. Wants to make people afraid so that they accept his terms. Yesterday Putin was discussing hours with the Ukrainian President Zelensky. If you want to take a country, you don't discuss, you just take it. By surprise and with your troops hidden as good as possible. But Putins is already showing in public he wants to take Ukraine and he even shows extensively all his military positions and even soldiers on mission in Siberia.
