Public sentiment is predominantly negative, with significant criticism of Ukrainian President Zelensky and expressions of frustration over the humanitarian crisis resulting from the ongoing conflict. Commenters call for leadership change and peace negotiations, reflecting deep concerns about civilian suffering, skepticism towards geopolitical decisions, and skepticism about both Western leadership and Russia's military actions.

Ukrainian Government

Russia

United States and NATO

Trump Administration

It’s not surprising, this is the Russian method of war. Sustain incredible manpower and materiel losses until you can scale up a war economy and go at it full hammer and tongs.

It’s the annoyingly successful strategy of war if you’ve got enough depth to take the initial punishment.

spicypixel

***The Telegraph reports:***

Maksym Ustymenko had just shot down six Russian drones from his F-16 when a seventh struck his jet.

With the aircraft badly damaged, the pilot made a split-second decision to steer away from the populated area below and crash into an empty field, rather than give himself enough time to eject.

The Ukrainian lieutenant colonel died “like a hero”, the nation’s air force said, during what was [Russia’s largest combined missile and drone barrage](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/06/29/ukrainian-pilot-killed-shooting-russian-missiles-sky/) of the war so far.

Some 537 aerial weapons – 477 drones, mostly [Iranian-made Shaheds](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/05/27/russia-deadly-drone-arsenal-more-powerful-iran-ukraine/), and 60 missiles – were launched late on Saturday and early Sunday last weekend.

That record was swiftly broken early the following Friday, when [Russia launched 550 missiles and drones](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/07/04/ukraine-russia-war-putin-trump-zelensky-latest-news/) at Ukraine.

Russia’s surging defence industry, bolstered by an expanded missile plant in Votkinsk and rapidly expanding supply chains, could soon allow Russia to fire 1,000 missiles and drones at Ukrainian cities in a single night.

Vladimir Putin hopes that by sustaining repeated onslaughts, he can wear down morale among Ukraine’s population, deplete Kyiv’s defences and undermine the [West’s appetite to maintain its support](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/06/16/russia-demands-ukraine-destroy-all-western-weaponry/).

“They target population centres because they’re trying to exhaust Ukrainian air defence, and they know Ukrainian air defence will prioritise defending the cities and critical infrastructure,” Michael Kofman, a leading analyst of Russian and Ukrainian military operations, told The Telegraph.

**Read more:** [**https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/07/07/russia-hammer-ukraine-1000-drones-missiles-a-day-war/**](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/07/07/russia-hammer-ukraine-1000-drones-missiles-a-day-war/)

TheTelegraph

I think Ukraine is going to lose a lot of territory and military power in the near future. Allies are not doing nearly enough. There is going be more conflicts and wars on the European continent because of this.

yus456

&gt; Russia could soon hammer Ukraine with 1,000 missiles and drones a day

&gt; Look inside

&gt; Russia fired 60 missiles and 477 drones in a single day

&gt; The next attack was a week later

&gt; Attack cost tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars

&gt; 1 dead, 23 wounded

I swear to god is there a media website that isn't run by fifth columnists armed with clickbait and ambiguous wording? Is there anybody at the Telegraph who actually passed their Ethics in Journalism class? Which godforsaken online university that spat out these moronic ink garglers need to have its non-existent certification revoked? This is the single worst strategic failure and the most inefficient military operation in the history of violence and somehow someone is being paid to make it sound threatening to mouthbreathing keyboard facesmashers who can't read more than 12 words in an hour. Does Putin have the editor's pee tapes or something?

SerendipitouslySane

I’m sure those drone factories already have trucks parked nearby 

datbino

But the thing is. What is the strategy? Destroy everything? 

Will it ever convince Ukrainians to give in to Russia? 

And even if that happens, then what? Are they going to occupy a Ukraine that will have given weapons to any civilian that will have wanted to receive something. 

I simply don't understand the long game. Even if they manage to replace Ukraine government with FSB agents, how will they hold on?

What is the actual plan here?

The fact is still that Ukrainians don't want Russia to rule them and I don't think bombing them will make them love Russia.

I don't see Ukraine turning into Chechnya, there's too many Ukrainians,  to much Ukrainian money and weapons.

Dietmeister

Where is rheinmetal with some damn Terminator tech AA guns already?

ABillionBatmen

The only way to win this war is to bleed the Russian economy dry until it is no longer worth it to fight.

They need to make it costly in every dimension.

I_pee_in_shower

Wouldn't they have already done it if they could?

Mike_Raphone99

They are not going to win this war by spamming cheap and ineffective Iranian-made Shaheds drones at civilian targets. They are just burning money they don't have to bolster the Ukrainian recruitment efforts.

The whole thing reeks of impotence.

MarzipanTop4944

How are those Skyrangers coming along, Rheinmetall?

GrizzledFart

I reminisce the naïve times when we asked the West to “close the sky”🥶

Irexandl

Does anyone have a total number of the airstrikes?

leo_mm_9183

At 2 a.m. our whole family woke up because of drones flying and exploding. It lasts for over 30 mins and during this time a college was attacked. Then at 4 a.m. a rocket hit a civil multi-storey building. Thankfully without any victims.

Abzor4ik-UA

Bro didn’t they run out of missiles in 2023

Few-Audience9921

More gepards, many more skyrangers and sky shields and a fuck load of patriots/nasams/samp-t/iris-t + F-16!with amraam missles

God dam it give them all of it do fucking defend the civilians!

Salt_Respect7159

kgmaan

Humxnsco_at_220416

Pretty impressive, interesting You can tell there  are major pathways

Caboucada

Hang in there! Russia has rockets for two-three massive strikes only.(c) 

_AgCl_

Russia running out of missiles any minute now

jaaan37

That's really not good for Ukraine. They need missiles so badly. Using jets with guns to intercept is madness (obviously the best thing they can do) 

Western aid is just a bit pathetic to be honest. This war has been going on for long enough that the UK should have been prioritising mass production of air defense for ourselves and Ukraine.

General_Scipio

Kasern77

Cub_Millenial

Ukrainian interceptions said are propaganda. The German Kiel Insistute estimated Ukraine's interception rates as follows:

"Data from the war so far shows that Ukrainian air defence has an overall interception rate of 30% for missiles and 66% for drones:

• 50% for the older Kalibr subsonic cruise missiles • 22% for modern subsonic cruise missiles (e.g. Kh-69)

4% for modern ballistic missiles (e.g. Iskander-M) . 0.6% for S-300/400 supersonic long-range SAM • 0.55% for the Kh-22 supersonic anti-ship missile.

Data on interception of hypersonic missiles is scarce; Ukraine claims a 25% interception rate for hypersonic Kinzhal and Zircon missiles, but Ukrainian sources also indicate such interceptions require salvo firing all 32 launchers in a US-style Patriot battery to have any chance to shoot down a single hypersonic missile.

They also note that the ratio is declining as Ukraine runs low on the more expensive AA missiles, and is forced to rely on other interception methods (such as lots of machine guns, and helicopters/jets shooting them down instead). Their data is from October 2024.

iLov3musk

Ok-Chemical5556

Now that’s what I like to see in news every morning

Pro3p

So is it a narrative change? -Rusia is not stupid and bad equip morons who lose troops and gear on massive scale every day?

Tolar01

When's the last time a top post didn't have a political agenda in this sub? I'd love to see an analysis of the the meta of this sub over the last 3 years.

Successful-Meet-2289

[deleted]

DraugrDraugr

SuperMims1

Meanwhile pro-Ukraine Reddit and the whole of Western MSM swore that Russia would "run out missiles" in March 2022.

just-porno-only

Do a few more of those and they will run out of ordinance. Also, the next Ukrainian strikes are going to have to hit Moscow targets. Just to scare the shit out the people there with a shattered onion dome or two at St Basil's. It would play well and be tough for Vlad to deny happened.

work4bandwidth

I’m looking for more about this, I saw this article recently and was like ?? https://defence-blog.com/ukraine-launches-massive-aerial-assault-on-russia/

Joshtheflu2

Pure beauty 

![gif](giphy|SKGo6OYe24EBG)

Fluid_Term_9884

But don't the Ukrainians say they intercept most of them?

Siriblius

Ukrainians know the sources now so tonite it should rain drones in Russia there

mariuszmie

this has been the headline for the past 4 days, are they breaking records every day since the spider web operation?

FireMammoth

Fit-Amoeba-5010

How convenient that Trump shut down anti-drone missile shipment to Ukraine recently so he could help his friend Vladimar kill civilians.  I guess he started the LA confrontation to distract his traitorous activity.

DistrictDue1913

Zelensky said yesterday that he believes Ukraine are almost at a point where they can force Russia to end the war. That explains all these desperate attacks from the Russians. They know they are losing and are trying to inflict as much pain as they can on their way down

Just curious, does Ukraine have a legitimate defense system against these aerial assaults? Something like an iron dome?

skillerspure

Putin must respond otherwise he look weak, it does not matter if response is logic or how much it will cost.

new_g3n3rat1on

They are basically surging to try and "prove" to the world that Operation Web doesn't mean anything, knowing that people in democratic country can vote and have short attention span. In the long run, this is disastrous as they are pushing up the expiration date for what aircrafts they have left.

Educational-Store131

They got the go ahead from trump. Onward.

Kdigglerz

Can we all just come together and crush this utter bullshit? A show of nato force was due 2 years ago. Let's just do this now and hopefully prevent further loss of life. It's nuts we haven't already. 

Bleedingfartscollide

Another daily post about the largest attack. Echo chamber is real

mammoth39

Many underestimate the size of the current conflict. Both armies have almost 1 million men on the frontline. Meanwhile, NATO has in the Baltic 10k plus the Baltic's own defence forces of 88k (the latter is overall defence including administration).

Russia's army is at this point combat-experienced and could easily spare 100-200k for a skirmish without endangering the progress in Ukraine. Far more if there were some kind of peace/truce.

Surely, if Western Europe were to mobilise fully, it could field more, especially if the US helped. Though the Baltic states are small and would be hard to free after an invasion.

Those are all worst-case scenarios, but testing with even just a small team of special forces, what the reaction of NATO would be if there were a "uprising of Russians fighting for freedom" is not impossible and would be according to Putin's past playbooks. 

It's a small probability-high impact scenario, and the more we are prepared, the less likely anything like that would happen.

sogo00

Russia mobilized so much materiel and transitioned to a war economy, and NATO is likely making the correct assumption that they will not de-mobilize even if war aims are achieved in UA. Sunk cost.

Begoru

Europe is trying to build up forces as the US under Trump is no longer reliable enough to guarantee their security. In the long term, the US is clearly prioritizing the Asia-Pacific region as Russia is more of a problem for the EU than America whereas China is the other way around. 

While the Russian Army has underperformed, a lot of people underestimate how large and powerful Ukraine is. It is the second largest country in Europe and received a lot of Western aid even prior to 2022 so it's not directly comparable to a conflict like the Iraq War. 

In an all out fight, NATO would win, especially if the US is involved, but Russia's strategy is to divide and conquer. Instead of attacking all of Europe, they would likely only concentrate on one country/region and see what they can get away with and then deescalate before NATO fully mobilizes. The EU itself is very divided and it would be difficult to convince countries like Spain and Portugal to send troops to fight for Estonia when the latter is so far away. Essentially, the NATO alliance has never truly been tested. It's one thing to get everyone together to fight the Taliban but a whole different proposition to fight Russia even if victory is (eventually) likely.

thenewladhere

1- Russia isn't doing as bad in Ukraine as people think. Despite Ukraine's extremely militarized economy, hundreds of billions of dollars in aid from allies, and unofficial help from NATO spy satellites and signal intelligence aircraft, Russia is still steadily taking ground albeit slowly.


2- Ukraine was a lot stronger before the war than most thought. People like to compare Russia's invasion of Ukraine to USA's invasion of Iraq but they aren't really comparable. Ukraine had over 100 S-300 batteries (not launchers, BATTERIES) at the start of the war. If Iraq had something like that it would have made the coalition's air forces job much more difficult. 

Not to mention Ukraine's much more experienced intelligence sector and veteran fighters that have been in combat since 2014.


3- Russia has the most nuclear warheads of any country on earth, and loads of different delivery systems that they regularly test both outside of, and inside of combat. This is easily the scariest part of Russia's capabilities.


4- A Russian conflict with NATO would likely start with Russia targeting the Baltics, and those countries are much weaker than Ukraine with small armies and almost non existent air forces.

ahhpanel

A bunch of propaganda, to be sure. 

However there is a huge difference between peace time countries defensive posture and the current ‘static’ battlefront across Ukraine’s east. 

snowman_M

&gt; ELI5: If Russia is struggling to make any progress in Ukraine

They are not struggling to make progress in Ukraine, unfortunately. They are, at great cost, progressing. But progressing. You can get your daily briefing at https://liveuamap.com/

Gusfoo

There is absolutely no existential conventional threat to nato. At the same time Europe's inability to scale up production of anything, combined with Russia's ability to replace huge materiale attrition, has shown europe that it's far behind Russia in terms of its ability to fight a conventional peer war for a prolonged amount of time. Given Europe's overwhelming economic superiority over Russia, as well as its technological edge, it would rather not be in a losing position in any major facet conventional warfare against Russia.


After all, if countries could simply count on other countries to not invade, then nobody even needs a military at all. For most nations that aren't in a conflict zone, the very essence of their militaries is to prepare for something that's very unlikely. So Europe is correct to want to address their shortcomings.

supersaiyannematode

Ukraine actually has a very large, well equipped army compared to most of Europe, including richer countries like Germany, Baltic nations etc. So if Ukraine is barely holding together with Western equipment and aids, can the rest of Europe really hold against Russia?

YareSekiro

Russia knows it can't win a type of conventional war against NATO it wages with Ukraine.

Their goal in a hypothetical conflict would probably to do a swift fat accompli in the Baltics whih have little population and not much stategic depth. Even with a very degraded force (nonetheless a lethal one with mobile infantry, drone units and guided bombs) they will have sufficient power to do this. Then, combined with a (for them) hopefully divided West with lot of govts having right-wing, Russia-sympathetic populists in charge would face the "do you want to die for Tallinn" argument. This would be a make or break moment for NATO and if they think the time is right and can pull it through would be a tremendous win for Moscow.

But there's of course a lot of what-ifs and hypotheticals here, but it's scenario that can't be excluded and is best avoided by NATO showing strength and commitment on its eastern flank.

MarderFucher

why not increase your defenses, when there is a war at your doorstep?

EternalInflation

NATO was founded after seeing:

A) The obvious economic threat of Communist ideas to the Western capitalist trade-based order, and the Western aristocracy of capitalist ownership.

B) The absolute insane lengths Russia was willing to go against Nazi Germany, in terms of losses and industrial conversion to wartime.

C) The endpoint of WW2 where Russia was entirely converted to wartime and the US had a good portion as well, and Stalin and Truman felt like they were playing an empire-building game they could not escape if they wanted to, whose endpoint was control of the world by the US or the USSR, if not nuclear annihilation.

D) It was significantly strengthened as the US trade empire dominated in the 50's, 60's, and 70's, producing unimaginable gains in quality of life, while the USSR political model in that time period became less and less of an aspirational one and more and more of a coercive one.  The term "tankie" is rooted in the Soviet Union's use of military tanks during the suppression of the 1953 East Berlin uprising and the 1968 Prague Spring. 

...

Basically NATO's entire purpose is to enable the US-led alliance to defend against Russian expansion, through a series of arms standardizations &amp; supply-chain interlockings, tripwires for deterrent capabilities, and secondarily direct military coordination and substantially expanded diplomatic interactions.

Trump, Biden, Obama, and even Bush have a significant chunk of their foreign policy thinkers who are deeply invested in this Cold War mentality that NATO has, but believe that China is the only adversary worth regarding as a threat.  They believe that China taking Taiwan militarily is imminent.  Taiwan is an island, which can be easily blockaded, and they feel that to deter a war, the US needs to pivot immediately to shoving as much military hardware onto the island as possible.  One of the manifestations of this thinking is Trump in his first 100 days attempting to rapidly end the war in Ukraine by a settlement even if it means giving away the farm to Putin, a goal which strongly conflicts with the interests of the rest of NATO who are not a Pacific-spanning alliance.  This has caused intense friction in the alliance, as Europe contemplates Trumps' numerous signals that they might be militarily abandoned by the US.

We can't be 100% sure how much Trump is doing this shift - what Obama called the Asian Pivot - for the same reasons Obama was doing it, versus what percent is down to Agent Krasnov related reasons; It is unknowable to us at this time.  But we do know that the foreign policy blob and eventually the generals have only become more insistent on Taiwan.  China's economic ramp-up since the 80's, China's nationalist political ramp-up since 2011, and China's military ramp-up over the past couple decades are all extreme in pace and character relative to what we could imagine implementing.   China has a large home-field advantage in Taiwan just off its coastline, and it isn't very long at the current pace before a naval advantage exists in several important capability areas; They're outbuilding us by a factor of 20+, and every generation of ship gets bigger and better.  We're literally seeing them build novel invasion docks, a 500' long suspension bridge on a jack-up barge, that could be useful for nothing else.  The prospect that if we want Taiwan to remain independent, we need to prepare it, is not unwise.

So Europe is examining what a wartime-converted Russian economy would do in various scenarios.  Let's say the US pulls out entirely (intelligence satellites and Starlink included), and later Russia overruns Kiev, which requires killing thousands of European special forces, and then finds its machinery of state entirely devoted to recruiting troops and building tanks and drones?  Is there any way that retaking the Baltic Sea *wouldn't* be on its priority list?  Putin's grasp on power in Russia is significantly associated in 2025 with "rally behind the flag effect" wartime memes.  The economy is also running on high-interest bond issues that seem like they might absolutely destroy the economic system over time, if that economic system is free to float without wartime demand.

So a tiny Baltic nation of a couple million people has to check and double-check what sort of defense they have against a couple million soldiers, how credible these alliances are, whether there would in point of fact be any speed bump to slow down a new Russian incursion before taking the capital.

Russia has performed abominably in Ukraine, both in ways unique to Russia and in ways we now expect to occur in any peer to peer conflict.  They have almost entirely consumed their intimidating Soviet stockpiles of everything but nukes.  But now they've spun up the military-industrial complex, which takes time.  Europe has not finished that process.

Vishnej

If you look away from the propaganda of the west, you can see russians in fact making quite some progress in ukraine......


Once again I witnessed the power of misinformation. Yes, inside the English circle Russia is struggling to make progress, but in English circle only.


You better keep a record of the frontline and see it yourself. 

Kaka_ya

there is a saying: russia is known for making all wars an attrition and use their experience to out-attrit their opponent

CureLegend

Because Russia has made no secret that their next targets are the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) and/or Poland, all of whom are NATO members. If Russia is pushed back out of Ukraine, that'll cause them to re-think their plans for westward expansion.

And while Russia hasn't been doing great in Ukraine, they're *still* building up their military and deploying them not in Ukraine, but along their borders with NATO.

RobinOldsIsGod

Putin's favorite foreign policy strategy for some time now has been "escalate to deescalate" and on top of that he already believes himself to be fighting and winning against not just Ukraine but all of Europe as well, so expanding the war into the Baltics is not that far fetched given his past pattern of behavior

As for why Europe is worried, it is because the fact that the Russian army was catastrophically underprepared for invading Ukraine and the fact that invading Ukraine was a catastrophically stupid idea in the first place were not enough to deter Putin from invading Ukraine anyway and therefore will not be enough to deter him from attacking the Baltics either should he get it in his head to do so. As we have seen in Ukraine, A Russian invasion is absolutely devastating for any communities, economies or ecosystems caught in its path whether it succeeds or not, which is why adequate preparations must be made to limit the scale and duration of such an incursion as much as possible.

It helps to think of the Russian army as more of a natural disaster (like a horde of AIDS ridden locusts) than an actual fighting force - you dont want that shit in your country even if you can kill it

Nuclear_Pi

Russia is simultaneously too weak to even damage Ukraine, but also so strong that they're going to take over all of Europe.

The obvious answer is that EVERYTHING is propaganda.

theQuandary

russia is currently avoiding full mobilization, keep in mind that this is still a special military operation and not an official war for them. were they to declare straight up war with nato/extended europe we would expect to see full mobilization of combat aged males from the metropolitan areas of russia, moscow, st. petersburg, novosibirsk, which would stir up possibly hundreds of thousands more bodies to feed the grinder, and extended use of airforce and naval assets. russia is specifically limiting what they lose in ukraine so they can possibly lose it elsewhere in europe, it's just a question of whether russia can force ukraine to kneel before they exhaust too many men or resources to recover, or if opening up that front becomes a way to force ukraine to kneel

An important thing is who has more will to sustain loss of people, materiel and money.  If Russia did an all out attack on something that the EU and/or NATO would do a full mobilization and be willing to take significant losses and risk nuclear war, Russia has no chance.

So if Russia does pick a fight with a NATO or EU country, they are going do salami slice it.  They would do something minor that they think that countries other than the one directly affected might not be willing to risk nuclear war over, not be willing to mobilize reserves over, and not be willing to do much more than spend some emergency funds over, and instead push for some resolution.  This could be something like when Venezuela said that they would send troops over to the Essequibo region of Guyana.  Everyone did not think that it would be more than a small raise the flag sort of thing for domestic Venezuelan politics so no one was chomping at the bit to send forces to Guyana to fight Venezuela.  Similarly, perhaps Russia would start salami slicing by sending a small squad to set up some outpost in some hinterland of Finland on some trumped up issue while raising their nuclear force alert status.  Then stay long enough to raise a stink and more importantly to show the NATO and the EU might not immediately mobilize to fight Russia over such a small thing with the threat of nuclear war.  Perhaps throw on a few more sanctions that will not really dissuade them.

Regardless, Russia would find a reason to withdraw and everyone else would be relieved that their sanctions or diplomatic efforts resolved the issue without nuclear war.  But the result of weakened confidence in the mutual aid and mutual defense aspect of the EU and NATO.  Possibly instead of Finland, do the same in Georgia or Moldavia.  \

Then cycle through varying where, how many, how far they go to see how far they can push it before NATO or the EU actually does start to take military action seriously.

TheNthMan

Because Russians isn’t struggling as much as western leaders say. The reality is that the conflict has turned into a meat grinder which Ukraine can’t sustain. The west has grown weary of feeding their expensive war machines to the front, meaning that Ukraines military is effectively in a constant state of decay. They can’t replace load equipment, and it seems that they may start to struggle replacing lost man power.

Russia on the other hand, has been successful in recent months. They were able to push the Ukrainians out of Kursk, surrounding several units and heavily reducing their equipment. Along the entire front, they are making slow progress, but they have effectively regained territory lost from Ukrainian counter offensives. On the production side of things, they’re in a much better position. Besides smaller terrorist attacks, sabotage, and early air strikes, Russia has largely avoided the damage from the conflict (excluding Kursk). Their economy is not facing nearly the same shortages that Ukraine is and they don’t appear to have the same man power issues. Russian equipment also comes at a much lower cost to replace, despite performing effectively the same as more expensive counterparts from the west. If I had to put money on who lasts the longest, it would probably be Russia. And when Ukraine eventually is overrun or capitulates, Russia will be right on NATOs doorstep.

tacosarus6

The war in Ukraine is going to freeze, one way or another. Russia will find itself with a wartime economy in peacetime, and very few options to revert to a normal economy. 

They will keep the production lines open and in 5-10 years they will have a massive military and a collapsing economy. Combine that with the regime’s lust for conquest, and you’ve got a recipe for a war. Especially if it lines up with other conflict (China/Taiwan) that the west thin.

Also, don’t forget that Ukraine is being propped up by NATO, so Russia is already handling a considerable fraction of NATO’s capacity for a sustained conflict.

Forte69

Well 2 reasons.

First is divide &amp; conquer. Russia is very well documented to be using its vast AI bot farm to interfere in western elections. Sometimes to very good effect (see Romania, who've had to redo their elections after extreme Russian interference made the result unreliable). It's very plausible that Russian disinformation campaigns (especially directed towards the new right-wing disruptor parties like the AfD) causes major European players into separating from Europe. Last thing Europe wants is another repeat of the USA, where they're wholly reliant on 1 nation (e.g. France) for its defence, only for that nation to go into its own bout of isolationism. 

In that case, everyone preparing for war should, in theory, mean that if one country buggers off, the other countries can fill that capability gap easier. This is why the UK for example needs to really be involved in this, since they can be that secondary nuclear deterrent. Just because Russia may not be able to face off against all of NATO, doesn't mean Russia isn't a threat. 

And of course, Russia will learn. Russia &amp; Ukraine are really the only nations with that hands-on experience of how to fight a modern conflict. Yes, ourselves in the west are learning too. But Russia will have the advantage of having done it. The second the war ends, their military will be rebuilt towards fighting these sort of wars. So that when it comes round, they'll actually be in a very strong position.

No one is concerned that Russia will launch an invasion in 3 years time. People are very concerned that in 5-10 years, a rebuilt Russian military will be able to relaunch an invasion of Ukraine, perhaps Moldova or potentially even the Baltics (depending on the political landscape).

(And a whole load of other reasons. Russia is still making progress, even if slow. Russia is still a major military power. The Russian economy is still on a war footing. The Baltics are actually quite weak militarily so are susceptible to a Russian assault.)

Mediocre_Painting263

Because Ukraine was by far the most powerful military in Europe even before the war started. And yet, even with tons of NATO support, Russia is still slowly winning. This, combined with Europe's repeated failed attempts at rebuilding its industrial base should terrify NATO. Contrary to popular belief, Russia shows no signs of being exhausted anytime soon. If the US sits it out or ceases to exist, which is looking more and more likely every day, Russia vs NATO is honestly a coin toss on my opinion.

RoboticsGuy277

zuppa_de_tortellini

The reports of a million men on the font lines is a massive overestimate. There are maybe half that , with only a tiny portion of those active in combat operations. But the manpower situation in Ukraine is dire enough (maybe 3-5k recruited every month) that a serious push from the Russian side can destabilize the front lines, as you're starting to see again. Putin's kabuki theater negotiations over the last year have largely kept things static, but the frog is being slow boiled.

SFMara

Because although they are currently struggling they are still very dangerous. It’s extremely unlikely Russia would be able to achieve any large scale victory against NATO but if they were able to simply bite off a chunk of say the Baltic states, then dig in and hold on. It would be difficult to remove them. They are also still a nuclear armed state so really no matter how poor their military becomes they will always have a base level of threat in their hands. TLDR: a nation that is on a war footing but struggling is still very dangerous to nations that are not at all on a war footing.

Ok-Theory5986

And now you see the inconsistencies that indicate you're being lied to. They're not preparing for a possible conflict with Russia they're using it as an excuse to hand money to the defence industry and ultimately to their rich mates who own the defence industry. Saying Russia will invade Europe is as ridiculous as saying China will invade Taiwan and like Taiwan I think once this Ukraine business is wrapped up it will be "[Intelligence Agency] says Russia will invade Europe in [current year+3]"

Kaymish_

You arevery unlikely to get unbiased, reasonable answers here.
So, use your brain and come to own conclusion

cesam1ne

Because Russia has a long history of solving a losing war by creating an even bigger one.

Texas_Kimchi

When I heard reports they were reinforcing a base near the Finnish border I had the exact same thought. Is one quagmire not good enough for them do they need two? What kind of curious how forcefully Europe would react, The rhetoric of course is oh they will slam the door hard on Russia. I wonder if NATO would try to fight a limited action at the border to try to keep them out but also drain them a bit without invading or spooking them in a way that would get Europe nuked.

UnexpectedAnomaly

FtDetrickVirus

How about this one,  
Putin wants to divert all these hot-headed and indoctrinate Russian youth he keep training as 'reserve' for long war in Ukraine. Without something to do these guys would point their guns at him.

So he start unwinable war with Europe. Russian would keep dying while Putin stick to his chair a little bit longer.  
Otherwise some upstart might decide to dethrone him. I didn't say Medvedev.

It's not a credible threat, but it makes good propaganda for domestic consumption. People have gone completely nuts about Russia - even to the extent of demanding Tchaikovsky be cancelled - so pretending to be the patriotic bastion standing between them and invasion plays well.

ForPortal

A recent air strike in Kyiv resulted in the deaths of 31 individuals, leading to international condemnation and calls for military support to Ukraine.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict: Recent Air Strikes Impact

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