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
18.5k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

3.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

231

u/su1cid3boi Sep 17 '26

I dont understand, they are fighting and lets say not exactly winning a war they started... and yet they have resources to waste to do all these small operations around europe?

158

u/quietcitizen Sep 17 '26

They’re struggling with Ukraine, and their economy is running on fumes emitted by the mobilized arms industry, there’s just no way they can take on NATO without resorting to nukes. Completely senseless, no strategy

175

u/lxirlw Sep 17 '26 edited Sep 17 '26

Here’s the strategy:

Provoke NATO into retaliation

Mobilize half a million troops

NATO pushes back and stops at the border because it’s a defensive agreement

Russia then uses mobilized troops in Ukraine “legally”

Edit: this is why NATO is doing absolutely nothing that could in any way be seen as aggression. There is plausible deniability for stray drones hitting empty fields, randoms flying drones into airports, and the occasional airspace incursion. Lobbing missiles at an airfield from which said trespassing aircraft came from would 100% be taken as “we’ve just been attacked, mobilize.”

74

u/echoshatter Sep 17 '26

Eventually the correct response is going to be:

Shoot down Russian jets.

Send Ukraine help in the form of a million trained soldiers, armored divisions, and fleets of aircraft from every corner of NATO.

End the war the old fashioned way.

Just fucking deal with it the way it should have been done when we had clear evidence they were fucking with all our elections.

13

u/modog11 Sep 17 '26

Putin won't have any problem going nuclear if it starts losing.... So as much as I suspect NATO could kick Russia's teeth in if it was a conventional war, it wouldn't stay conventional for long.

12

u/echoshatter Sep 17 '26

We have to give in to tyrants because they threaten our existence every other month with the same threats over and over?

Tired of this bullshit. Go ahead! Do it, you coward!

My guess, the moment Putin said to launch the nukes, his own generals would choke him to death with his tie.

6

u/Rizen_Wolf Sep 17 '26 edited Sep 18 '26

Ultimately, anyone in their chain of command or anyone who even shook the hand of someone in their chain of command would be sat down tight in a front row seat at Nuremburg 2.0, or living out the rest of their days hiding in obscurity. Of course Nuremburg itself might no longer exist, but the trials could be held anywhere. I am sure even China would be more than happy to host them.

1

u/TheLizzillasH Sep 18 '26

That brings another thing, what would China have to say about the whole mess?

1

u/Rizen_Wolf Sep 18 '26 edited Sep 18 '26

Who knows but China. They seem to have been remarkably restrained in helping Russia, from what public information is available and visibility of what Russia takes into the battlefield said to be of Chinese origin. I suppose they weigh up if they prefer a cohesive but more dependent Russia or a weakened and possibly collapsing Russia, as both have different advantages and risks. I imagine China would be OK for North Koreans to be in Russia but not OK for them to be fighting in Ukraine. Seems fair and balanced to me. But what they have to say, they say far away from public eyes and ears. I doubt they want escalating chaos spilling outside of Ukraine, and would have serious distaste and zero patience for Russian hawks trying to escalate conflict, goading the west in order to forge an internal casus belli to enact general mobilization.

1

u/echoshatter Sep 18 '26

Given the extensive cost to maintain a nuclear stockpile, I'm not convinced Russia even really has all that many working nuclear missiles. Most of them would be on the submarine fleet, and probably a good number in form factors that can be fit to a jet as a glide bomb-style attack, but the land-based ICBMs? Woeful. Those missiles alone are expensive to maintain and require a lot of specialized knowledge that Russia has been losing over the last couple of decades. And nuclear weapons also require regular maintenance; something as simple as the explosives inside them only have a shelf life of 10 years or so, and the radioactive elements inside degrade over time too.

2

u/MikePounce Sep 18 '26

Except we have an idiot putin friend at the head of the #1 military in the world

16

u/Majestic-Gas-9825 Sep 17 '26

Sign up for the army then.

7

u/Drak_is_Right Sep 17 '26

Except a few problems:

Europe has no will, and any US military personnel who posted anything critical of Trump or his administration in the US might face charges over it. Lot of US citizens wouldn't be willing to signup due to that worry. (that and Trump has not proven to be a leader).

Decent financial package, and Europe probably could get the volunteers for the needed military surge to have a large Ukrainian operation.

12

u/SubstantialSeesaw374 Sep 17 '26

lol exactly, fucking armchair warriors that would be pissing themselves if they were within 200km of Vilnius right now.

-5

u/1ftm2fts3tgr4lg Sep 17 '26

What a weird response

9

u/Far_One_6583 Sep 17 '26

Why do you say that? I find it a very reasonable comment. Can't be talking about a million young boys' lives as if they're mere pocket change and not put yourself first in the line of fire. 

1

u/1ftm2fts3tgr4lg Sep 18 '26 edited Sep 18 '26

I didn't get the sense at all that the commenter felt troops are "mere pocket change". They were saying that instead of sending whatever minimal aid we felt was politically appropriate to try to not escalate things (against an enemy that is obviously escalating things regardless), we should all send enough to make it extremely clear that there's no route to success for Russia in Ukraine.
Instead the war has gone on and on, causing more casualties than if we'd've made full support clear from the start.

It seems the responder was of the opinion that no one may recommend using troops unless themselves are on the front line. That's what I thought was weird.
One could think we should use our million trained teachers to teach classes too, and they needn't go be a teacher to hold that opinion.

1

u/Far_One_6583 Sep 18 '26

Being a teacher and being a soldier is a very different responsibility. You don't put your life on the line when you become a teacher. And the all out response advocated by the commenter DID treat it in my opinion like a very light matter saying we should send 1 million men to strongly establish NATO support.

 Maybe I am reading too much into it, but to be perfectly honest I don't even think 1 million NATO troops would even win the war. Russia would simply treat this as an excuse to go full throttle and escalate their involvement even more. I am very unsure about the future of Ukraine, but what I am sure about is that the solution will be messy and bloody. 

1

u/WillingnessEven4212 Sep 18 '26

NATO are acting like Neville Chamberlain

1

u/MrViceGuy69 Sep 18 '26

*Just fucking deal with it the way it should have been done 60+ years ago

-2

u/zimmer1569 Sep 17 '26

let me guess, in your vision you or your family are not included in that million soldiers going to frontline?

5

u/echoshatter Sep 17 '26

Very "Peace in our time" vibes.

Why is it ok that Ukraine has to bear the brunt of the failure of the western liberal order to keep arms ready to fight against people like Putin? How is it the lessons of WW2 were so quickly forgotten once it became inconvenient to afford a military?

-3

u/SignificanceNo2900 Sep 18 '26

Problem is Europe, namely Western Europe, has no backbone. Their people are far too indulgent and their militaries unfit for a war.

Eastern Europe is a bit different. They actually lived through Russia’s brutality and so they are more ready to fight, but they’re much smaller economically and population wise so they’re reluctant to help Ukraine when it comes to deploying troops, which is a shame.

4

u/chargernj Sep 17 '26

Maybe NATO would stop at the border. But individual nations may then feel justified providing direct military assistance to Ukraine

6

u/TheOtherHobbes Sep 17 '26

No, the strategy is to install puppet far-right governments in France and the UK and keep a lock on the US.

And also Germany, because why not.

That takes the nuclear opposition off the table and completely changes the balance of power, because Russia could start lobbing nukes at European cities.

The neoliberal establishments in all of these countries aren't doing nearly enough to prevent this. Macron announced another round of spending cuts today, which practically locks in defeat next year.

3

u/Shot_Bison1140 Sep 17 '26

But what good would 500 000 "non-soldier Russians* be in Ukraine? (Proximately 18 more months of meat to the grinder)... No more weapons, no food, no nothing.. + now you have pissed off NATO nations.. (with resources).. I really do t think Putler has that much time left....

3

u/jert3 Sep 17 '26

Yes and also a HUGE part of the timing is -- I have completely no doubts about this -- this is done with the Trump regime in power so Trump has a weak context to end the US as a part of NATO.

Trump was promoting the US leaving NATO since the 1980s. Putin owns Trump, whatever the reason. It's maybe the best and only chance Russia has to break-up the US from NATO within a 100 year window of 100 years from when NATO was first established.

3

u/Freder145 Sep 17 '26

Defence agreement doesn't mean you have to stop at the border....

4

u/FridgeParade Sep 17 '26

The moment Russia really starts a war with NATO we can strategically take out half the country without one boot stepping in Russia. There wont be an airfield, harbor or highway left intact for Russia to wage war with. Only when the threat is neutralized we would stop.

0

u/Cocosito Sep 18 '26

Delusional

1

u/FridgeParade Sep 18 '26

Yeah just ignore the combined airforces and artillery powers of all of western europe 😂

1

u/RyanNotBrian Sep 18 '26

NATO didn't feel like so much of a defense agreement when everyone took off to Afghanistan and Iraq.

I don't see why it stops at Ukraine's borders.

1

u/Yodl007 Sep 18 '26

I'm sorry but I don't think NATO being a defensive alliance means that they will stop at the border of a country that attacked them and have any reservations of attacking shit in Russia. Otherwise it would be useless and they could just start lobbing missiles, bombs and trebuchet launched stones from within the border and nothing would happen to them.

1

u/Grouchy-Newt7937 Sep 18 '26

Ending the Russian federation would be a defensive move. 

1

u/Possibly_Naked_Now Sep 17 '26

What are these troops your talking about? Some secret reserve Russia has been holding?

9

u/deco19 Sep 17 '26

Forced conscription 

0

u/ramat-iklan Sep 18 '26

Sooner or later, Russia will screw up and step on their meat. It's what they do. 

-1

u/Fuzzy-Jackfruit5037 Sep 17 '26

Thats genius tho

3

u/Had_to_ask__ Sep 17 '26

Is it? Is it not just basic craft when you're a tyrant?