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That may sound cheer worthy, but considering they very obviously can't handle even 1 front, attacking another country would have to be for a different reason, a more problematic reason.
Can you expound on the later part of your thought? I'm struggling to picture a scenario in which the Kremlin purposefully opens a second front. The purpose of these airspace raids is to saber rattle and make it so Europe beefs up its defenses and is less likely to give equipment to Ukraine and instead use it domestically.
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.
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.
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.
It worked with pigeons, it should work with children.
THEY'RE DROPPING WIGGUMS RUN EVERYONE
They'll infect them with autism before being launched.
Russia doesn't act logically and there's a positive feedback loop in the command - where each commander reports situation to his commander as better than it actually is, so what Putin hears from his yesmen, may as well be something like:
So yeah, it may be that they're just all bark no bite now, but after enough time doing that there'll be real question "are we actually gonna do it or chicken out?" and that will be solely a question of leaders fragile ego.
Im curious if this is true in any way, or is just armchair chatter. Are there actual reports of this?
You also have to remember the phenomenon isn't new, and the Russian elites expect and adjust for it. There's internal spying going on, and I'm pretty sure Putin would have an idea how the war effort is going, even if there's pretty serious information gaps on which exact parts will fail when.
This is also why they structure their troops the meat-grindery way they do. Sure, counting more bodies as more success is dumb and counterintuitive, but no bodies could either be great success or your unit selling their equipment to go on a bender, so it's better to choose the way that guarantees some kind of combat. My source on that practice is Kamil Galeev.
Kinda yes to both variants.
Russia inflates battlefield gains after a costly summer offensive
It's kinda been the thing at least since Soviet times where the tendency to report higher efficiency overcame any logic, and it wasn't just production plans in with those famous "5 year plans", it also creeped in into military, where there'd be, for example, tank hangar overseer reporting 50% of machines being battle ready to his commander, his commander would report 60, then up next it becomes 70, and like that until defence minister gets "we've got entire 100% machines ready".
What We Can Learn from the Soviet Collapse in: Finance & Development Volume 31 Issue 004 (1994)
Thank you!
I can speculate it could be to frame this war as a war against nato, or to get a reason for full scale mobilization, or to get a reason to use nuclear weapons.
"Nuclear weapons use" is an element of their doctrine for foreign policy influence.
They are not fucking idiots. But they do recognize that "nuclear blah blah" works well with cowardly westerners.
They are not fucking idiots? They absolutely are fucking idiots. And they are being backed into a corner. A lot of stuff can happen.
How much do you know about russian history? If your life was on the line, do you think you could write 3 key bullet points (since your life is on the line, you wouldn't have access to a search engine or an LLM) about every decade of 20th century russia? Basic things like 1906 protests, implementation of NEP, Khrushev and so on. No one is asking for in-depth knowledge.
Do you speak russian? How do you know they are not playing you if you don't speak russian?
Your message about "backed into a corner" is exactly what they want you to think. They got you "hook line and sinker" as the North Americans like to say.
Haha. I don't think you have any idea what you are talking about.
You think your the first person I've met with this attitude? Be it IRL/online or from EU or USA?
You can't even speak russian and you claim to understand their leadership and society. It's extremely ignorant.
Ok, whatever you say.
What are you thinking exactly?
My main idea on why they'd escalate is because they're sure the EU and NATO will fold this time, definitely, for certain.
Escalate just so much that NATO won't act and cracks might form in nato. That was the strategy all along. Maybe this is a part of that.
I guess, but even a small fragment of NATO is more than a match for Russia, so that wouldn't be a winning strategy exactly.
It would be, that's why I think Russians won't be looking for a direct confrontation. They need something that's big enough to cause some panic, but not not enough for the big countries to start anything. Something they can blame someone else for. Or go for a non NATO country like Moldova.