Ukraine’s president says Kremlin checking Europe’s capacity to protect its skies following new drone sightings
Vladimir Putin will expand his war in Ukraine by attacking another European country, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has predicted, and accused Russia of recent drone incursions that he said were an attempt to test Nato’s defences.
Speaking in Kyiv after his meeting with Donald Trump at the UN in New York, the Ukrainian president said Russia was preparing for a bigger conflict. “Putin will not wait to finish his war in Ukraine. He will open up some other direction. Nobody knows where. He wants that,” he said.
Ukraine’s president said the Kremlin was deliberately checking Europe’s capacity to protect its skies, after drone sightings in Denmark, Poland and Romania and the violation of Estonian airspace by Russian fighter jets. More drones were spotted on Friday night above a Danish military base, and over a Norwegian base on Saturday.
Russia haven’t been able to fully mobilize their population for war. If Putin can convince Russians that they are in an existential war with NATO then he can introduce conscription. If he’s able to double/triple the bodies on the front line in Ukraine then there a real possibility of overwhelming the defenders.
Indeed, if Vlad can continue to convince the Russian people, he will receive his cannon fodder. Hopefully it fails and Russia repeats 1917 without the Bolsheviks.
Except NATO could and would do the same, and even without the US the European members of the alliance have far greater manpower reserves than Russia. And better tech. And a larger manufacturing base. And more money. And better access to global markets. And navies to protect that access.
Attacking Ukraine was stupid. Attacking NATO would be nothing short of suicidal. Russia would lose a conventional war, and nobody wins a nuclear war.
I’d argue that attacking Ukraine was only stupid in hindsight. With the information they had at the time, it looked like a very good plan. Most outside observers figured Ukraine would last weeks at most. No one expected Russia’s military to prove so ineffective, and even with all the training and support they’d gotten from NATO since 2014, Ukraine’s military still seriously exceeded expectations. Russia didn’t act stupidly, but they did fail to correctly assess the relative military readiness of themselves and their opponents.
Which really only further reinforces your point that attacking NATO would be suicide, and Russia is painfully aware of that. They’re not stupid, and with everything they’ve learned since attacking Ukraine they now how a much more accurate picture of how their equipment and tactics would fare against those of NATO.
I think it’s fair to say that Russia has since acted stupidly and continues to act stupidly. The meat-grinder approach may have worked with an overwhelming man power advantage and at least some training. Instead they’ve just hemorrhaged men, equipment, and morale by just throwing untrained and under-equipped soldiers at the front line.
Happy to agree on that score. While I don’t think the decision to invade Ukraine was, in of itself, a stupid one, there’s absolutely a lot of bad choices that have been made at the operational level since then. The distinction matters because you have to remember that these decisions are made at different levels. The decision to invade was made by Putin and a handful of his closest advisors. The decisions about how to run the war… Well, a lot of those aren’t so much decisions as long-standing Russian / Soviet theories of warfare collapsing in the face of reality. The problems are doctrinal, and deeply embedded. But it’s also important to be aware that the Russians are, slowly, learning from these failures and contuing to adapt to their new reality.
I think these distinctions are important, because it would be foolish to treat Putin as an idiot. He’s not. He’s a terrifyingly intelligent and dangerous individual, and the fact that he’s running a country like Russia is a problem for everyone. It would also be foolish to assume that the Russian military will continue to make those kinds of operational mistakes going forward. A lot of what you’re seeing is less “stupidity” and more “big ships make slow turns.”
Agree, their initial invasion was evil, but not a ‘stupid’ idea, they had experience of just waltzing in with little resistance with barely a ‘shame on you’ in terms of consequences for their adventures prior.
Their making it a point of pride and pressing when it became clear a victory would not be worth whatever the price will be, that was and continues to be stupid.
Russia is already using conscription in the war
https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/02/europe/putin-russia-spring-conscription-ukraine-intl
The main distinction is that there are laws (ha!) against sending improperly trained conscripts into “active combat”. And while that can be potentially accelerated by claiming it is an emergency, it is much easier to just change the definition of “proper training”… which they already (allegedly) are.
But also? Russia already has massive morale and corruption issues. Giving even more untrained men guns is just a good way to have more mutinies and to have even more military gear show up on ebay/temu.
And also? Even if they triple the boots in Ukraine, having a second front (or one really giant front if it is all of NATO…) is not at all a worthy trade. Especially when those are fresh militaries with all the gear they had been holding back from Ukraine in case of this very scenario.
Nah. This is most likely the normal probing that putin does as standard practice with the added goal of scaring the EU into not wanting to support Ukraine in case Russia retaliates. Zelenskyy is just spinning this as the kind of bogeyman that would get his people much needed support.
Russian morale is absolutely dogshit right now. Among other things, soldiers are being forced to bribe their commanders if they want to leave the front (when they’re scheduled to be rotated out). Those who refuse to pay up get detailed to under-equipped suicide attacks.
Oh, and soldiers who die are being marked AWOL so their families don’t get death benefits, because the government has barely any money left to pay them, and they’re being forced to offer huge signing bonuses just to get the manpower they need.
Source: https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-force-generation-and-technological-adaptations-update-september-24-2025/
There are multiple reports in Russian-speaking outlets and communities about bribing to just skip some combat assignment, singular. Basically paying a subscription to your commander, at a variable rate, too.
Russia is already facing severe logistical and manpower issues that cannot be stemmed by importing foreign workers at this point… But I’m sure the factories can continue to produce munitions with children in them, right?
That doesn’t sound particularly effective.
THEY’RE DROPPING WIGGUMS RUN EVERYONE
It worked with pigeons, it should work with children.
They’ll infect them with autism before being launched.
This is why Trump was telling the Americans to stop taking Tylenol; it’s so that he can help Putin make more autistic kids to drop on Ukraine. Wake up, sheeple!!