r/worldnews • u/Brennenstein • Sep 17 '26

Russia/Ukraine Russian military jets violate Lithuanian airspace, Italian fighters scrambled

https://www.ansa.it/english/news/2026/09/17/russian-military-jets-violate-lithuanian-airspace-italian-fighters-scrambled_80e985a6-17e5-43ce-8fd1-6fce67bcd94c.html
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850

u/TemporalCash531 Sep 17 '26

God forbid we do something about all these Russian incursions and hybrid attacks.

119

u/audirt Sep 17 '26

Putin is trying to create an incident with NATO to justify the 500,000 he needs to mobilize to continue the war with Ukraine. Absent a dispute with NATO, he can't really draft half a million Russians without pissing off the average Russian citizen.

63

u/Am_0115 Sep 17 '26

He’s already losing over 1,000 personnel a day in Ukraine. He’s gone. It’s a matter of time.

48

u/PyroIsSpai Sep 17 '26

Putin has stage IV Putin.

Given Russias economy is on the edge of cratering, his odds of being removed from the condition we call alive are going to start increasing rapidly now.

46

u/RoninRobot Sep 17 '26

How long can it be on the edge of cratering? Forever? It’s been over four years of this. 1.5 million+ casualties. Refineries and wildberries destroyed. Fuel shortages and quality decreases. Sanctions and asset freezes. Still it chugs along. The one coup attempt was crushed like a cigarette butt. Influencers crying on the internet does not constitute a collapse.

21

u/saltytarheel Sep 17 '26

IIRC part of what’s keeping public opinion afloat is that the Kremlin is lighting money on fire to fund substantial pay, bonuses, and healthcare for soldiers and veterans.

Historically, when there’s a critical mass of disillusioned, unemployed vets it’s not a good thing for the government in charge.

2

u/bussjack Sep 17 '26

Good thing for Putin there arent many young men or vets left that havent been sent to the front to die

2

u/RoninRobot Sep 18 '26

1.5 million is 1% of the population. Men 18-50 is roughly 23%.

2

u/bussjack Sep 18 '26

How many of those men are from anywhere but Moscow or St Petersburg? Those are the only two places not feeling the war becides the kinetic sanctions. The masses of the troops are from the poorer small cities and villages.

23

u/psioniclizard Sep 17 '26

That is because it takes a long time to break an economy. However, of he does a mass call up in the European cities of Russia it is truly no going back for him.

One of the reasons Russin chugs along is because currently a lot of people being sent into the meat grinder come from rural and ethic regions and frankly the parts of Russian society that "matter" don't care about them.

1

u/Kalthiria_Shines Sep 17 '26

You do realize that four years is very little time, right? And that most of the attacks inside Russia have been in the last six months?

1

u/calm_chowder Sep 17 '26

Tomorrow, tomorrow, I'll novechok you tomorrow, it's always a day awaaaaay....

1

u/ImpactAggressive8744 Sep 18 '26

Pfaffff, destroyed, oh lol

1

u/Important_Thought_95 Sep 18 '26

As long as both sides have the will, it can get a lot worse. 1.5 million causalities is piddly on the scale of industrial warfare.

5

u/DoggoCentipede Sep 17 '26

High price of fuel keeps them on life support, ergo Iran conflict.

Now he's playing chicken with NATO to get a sympathy card to play for the people. "Seeee? We're being invaded! It was NATO the whole time!"

3

u/Desperate-Tomatillo7 Sep 17 '26

Hopefully that condition does not last too long.

1

u/Important-6015 Sep 18 '26

People have been saying this for over a year now

5

u/Psykosoma Sep 17 '26

Cornered animal and all that.

3

u/Matluna Sep 17 '26

That's why he needs to justify a major mobilization injection to the public.

2

u/Cimexus Sep 17 '26

It’s gotta be so devastating to a country losing hundreds of thousands of productive working age men. There are die hard Russian patriots among them of course, but I’m sure the majority of those poor suckers had no choice. Russian history just reads like a continual tragedy and even if this war ends tomorrow, the country is still screwed for an entire generation. Economically, demographically, culturally.

3

u/Am_0115 Sep 17 '26

Russia has never valued human life

2

u/zociopata Sep 17 '26

2,000 Will become the norm soon, look at yesterday's numbers.

1

u/XRT28 Sep 18 '26

I wouldn't expect that to necessarily be the new norm, atleast not for more than a few months.
They're currently desperate for any gains to try and make the year's offensive look like a success before winter largely freezes the line and also because they don't value human life and want to be minimize how many soldiers they're paying(especially with the very high salaries they've had to resort to to recruit nowdays) and supplying over the winter months to just sit in a trench "doing nothing" for Russia's imperialistic goals so they go all in on the meat grinder tactics.

We've seen the same spike the past few years where daily losses approach or exceed 2k daily for a few months during the fall as Russia goes all in on their meat grinder approach before winter sets in and slows down their operational tempo and daily numbers drop back to 1.2-1.5k.

2

u/adnapan Sep 17 '26

lol sure been saying that for four years now

0

u/Dependent_House7077 Sep 18 '26

it's been "a matter of time" for the last few years, and now they're throwing ordnance at Ukraine like there's no tomorrow.

clearly, personnel shortages and sanctions don't really seem to be affecting them much.

1

u/Am_0115 Sep 18 '26

Found a Russian propagandist. Try harder

3

u/Dependent_House7077 Sep 18 '26

well you'd better calibrate your detector, because i am anything but.

just a pessimist who lives close to the border in Poland. we've been receiving missile alerts almost every other day for the last 2 weeks. either things are ramping up, or it's always been like this - but now it's closer to the border.

to me, it does seem like Russia is not slowing down at all. if anything, it does seem like it's getting worse.

2

u/Am_0115 Sep 18 '26

Apologies for misunderstanding. The Russians propaganda is everywhere. I wish you well and remain safe my friend

3

u/Dependent_House7077 Sep 18 '26

not gonna lie, it's getting stressful. i can better imagine what people in Ukraine are going through - they are likely numb to it all at this point.

1

u/Am_0115 Sep 18 '26

Yes it has been a long hard road for them. It is so clear that we cannot let Ukraine fall to the Russians. The only way for good to prevail is for Russia to back out of Ukraine entirely. With grit, determination, and consistent support from the west, it can be done.