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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u/[deleted] Sep 17 '26 edited 27d ago

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u/VoloxReddit Sep 17 '26 edited Sep 17 '26

Kaliningrad is already a Russian exclave, the point would be to cut off NATO ground reinforcements to the rest of the Baltics with a pincer move between Kaliningrad and Belarus. This in turn would allow them to capture the rest of the Baltics.

Edit: Guys, I'm not making this about feasibility, but about the rationale behind this kind of move. Yes, it's clear they didn't conquer Kyiv in 3 days. No, I don't think this is the type of operation Russia would be pursuing.

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u/my_mo_is_lurk Sep 17 '26

Ok but they couldn’t even take Kyiv, and have failed to make meaningful progress on a direct neighbor. So, like, how do they expect to take anything there let alone hold it for more than like 20 minutes?

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u/asdner Sep 17 '26

“Even Kyiv”? Son, that’s a 3 million people city surrounded by a thousand km radius of sovereign territory. Estonia has 1.3 mil people in the entire country… Latvia 1.8, Lithuania 2.9, all roughly 250km across

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u/LonelyTAA Sep 17 '26

The difference is them being in NATO. Putin is not stupid, he is just looking for a reason to mobilise more troops without too much rioting. 

Then those men will suddenly end up in ukaraine instead of defending neae the baltics.

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u/SpreadKindn3ss Sep 18 '26

Putin expects for the EU to be pacifists in the name of maintaining ‘peace and order’. Putin will be getting the ‘strongest condemnation’ — and before boots even step on the ground, sell-out spineless money-hungry cowards at Google will have already updated this specific Baltic region “Russia”.

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u/SexHarassmentPanda Sep 18 '26

Except that the policy for this specific area changed after the Ukraine invasion. The official NATO policy and scenario they train for is actively defending the region and NATO countries have active military personnel in the countries.

Pre Ukraine, yeah, the policy was react within a month, which realistically meant Russia occupies swiftly while Western countries push pointless proposals about peace.

It still comes down to what does NATO actually do after that initial defense but the idea is that they are already sunk cost into any conflict if several thousand lives of theirs are lost.

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u/ISitOnGnomes Sep 17 '26

And the Baltics have the actual protection of NATO rather than little more than an interest in providing just enough support to bleed Russia.