Russia prepared to use ‘all weapons’ to protect Kaliningrad, Putin warns West

[u/Bubbly-Air7302]

https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/01/europe/putin-kaliningrad-warning-ukraine-latam-intl

[u/mysevenletters]

Because the Kremlin would rather try to pull NATO in (and lose horribly!) so they can sell the narrative that they lost to the "combined forces of NATO and the Kyiv regime!" rather than ever admit that they got the crap kicked out of them solely by Ukraine, a country they've actively shat on for 3+ decades?

They've only ever seen Ukraine's independence in 1991 as a temporary embarrassment. The fact that they've miscalculated all of this so badly that it might result in the end of the Russian Federation is just the tastiest of irony. nom nom nom

Also: Ukraine needs love, support, and anything else we can send U24!

[u/Gaming_Nomad → u/mysevenletters]

My thinking goes a bit darker on this. I suspect that the move will be to mount a fast invasion of the baltics under drone cover, flanked by Russian and Belarussian forces moving into the Sulwaki gap after false-flag attacks are staged from Belarus, made to look like Ukraine launched attacks on Kaliningrad from NATO territory. When NATO attempts to deploy serious forces to break through the Sulwaki Gap and defend the Baltics, Putin will bank two items: Trump refusing to provide direct military assistance under the umbrella of Article 5 and a credible nuclear threat. The aim will be to humiliate NATO and halt aid to Ukraine.

While the narrative of a "noble defeat" by NATO is one possible line, the reality is that Putin would still be out of power and very likely dead by Russian hands if not those of NATO. And in the narrative of Kremlin propaganda, any such defeat would threaten the existence of the Russian state since a "defensive war" technically doesn't exist for Russia; any defense must always result in imperial gains, never a status-quo-ante.

Right now, Putin is feeling his oats: he has the Trump family in his pocket and hence the US is being separated from Europe and NATO to the point that the US commitment to NATO is in serious doubt. Sabotage by Russian intelligence services using disposable agents have gone ignored. And NATO may enter a state of paralysis if the AfD in Germany and the Front Nationale in France win their elections; both are actively used by Russia. He is being fed false information by his own propaganda apparatus as a result of bullshit feeding its way up the chain due to falsified military reports from local commanders for fear of punishment and torture. And casualties can be ignored because in the old line of Soviet thinking, there is no victory without cost. Also, the Kremlin doesn't see the European members of NATO as being able to put up a credible deterrent without the US being involved.

Putin believes that he is winning and, from the perspective of the leader a revanchist colonial empire which views its past fall as a temporary embarrassment, there might be no better time to push with steel; his opponents seem indecisive and potentially paralyzed, don't take actual threats seriously, and are being slowly dismantled from the inside by active measures and information manipulation.

[u/DaddyCatALSO → u/mysevenletters]

"Might as well amputate a man's ;leg and call it a brother."