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France and Poland both holding extraordinary security meetings, both judging a considerably increased risk from Russia to NATO's eastern flank. No assessment an attack is imminent or probable, but now possible in a way it wasn't a few weeks ago.

Putin may be getting more desperate, or this might be a substantial psy-op designed to cover for another Russian push into Ukraine from Belarus. The situation is not desperate yet, but the risk has increased to a more concerning level than previously (i.e., if the risk of a Russian attack on NATO was previously ~10% it might now be ~20%, still a less likely outcome but the increase is large enough to be worrying).

ETA: The Swiss government is now saying they're expecting things to deteriorate in the near future.

It is possible this response by governments is to the simultaneous ratcheting up of tensions from Russia and the situation in Iran and Yemen, which is likely to push petrol prices much higher in the near future, possibly to the point of major interruptions in fuel supply to Europe. It might be that the assessment is that Russia could try something whilst that was going on, creating a dilemma for European politicians facing internal and external threats simultaneously.

A lot of jumpy OSINT sources at the moment, believing some kind of major Russian provocation is imminent on NATO's eastern flank. More level-headed sources trying to get people to calm the F down. Russia has not amassed troops along the Baltic or Polish borders, no full-scale invasion is about to take place. A continuation and slow escalation of the current strikes very close to the border is likely.

There are some major military exercises going on in Belarus right now, but only 9,000 troops. Not enough to launch an invasion of Poland, which would be the most insane thing to happen in world history. Lukashenko is not that stupid, though Putin might be.

ETA: Ukrainian intelligence is now claiming that both Russia and Belarus have ordered 20,000 emergency beds to be made available in Belarusian and north-western Russian hospitals.

I'm going to tick my "this is concerning" metre up a notch.

Tsundoku, on 17 September 2026 - 10:29 AM, said:

Russian manpower problems are significant. They are losing troops at an insane rate and this has burned through their huge reserves, which are almost now non-existent. The forces they have are focused overwhelming only two areas, a 30-mile area from west of Dobropillya across to east of Kostyantynivka and then a tight hinge north past Chasiv Yar; and around Orikhiv on the Zaporizhzhia front. To keep these two fronts advancing, albeit slowly, they denuding troops from elsewhere, such as the line of the lower Dnipro in Kherson Oblast. This has allowed Ukraine to advance on the Lyman front, and just recently some indications of a serious counter-attack on the Russian forces holding onto the border areas in Kharkiv Oblast.

Russia still has a lot of troops, obviously, but it no longer has the tons of volunteers and prisoners it could draw upon, so it needs to consider mobilisation. That will not be pretty if they decide to go for it. If they do not mobilise, they have to switch to a defensive posture and that means giving up on taking all of the Donbas, which also means Putin's position will become untenable.

Yup, personally any claim that the Lyman counter-offensive is the "beginning of the end" for Russia in Ukraine is quite hyperbolic and not rooted in any kind of imminent reality.

Russian mil-blogger Rybar has indicated mobilisation is likely in the near future, and said that Russian men should not anticipate being well-equipped or receive adequate training. He's suggested Russian men begin preparations now in terms of training and amassing equipment.

Death notices being published in Russia confirm a very serious Ukrainian hit on a command post may have eliminated half a dozen or so senior officers with responsibilities for the front. Interestingly, both Ukraine and Russia kept quiet about this at the time.

Ukraine has successfully shot down at least one jet-powered Shahed variant with a new anti-jet drone interceptor. Ukraine will scale production to try to deal with the increasingly large number of jet Shaheds used in combat.

A Russian vessel in the Baltic fired flares at a Danish military helicopter, leading to Denmark summoning the Russian ambassador.

One claim that Ukraine fired over 700 drones at Russia during a 24-hour period, an all-time record and larger than most drone swarms fired by Russia at Ukraine. However, sources seem to be disputing how accurate this was.

Elvira Nabiullina, head of the Russian Central Bank, has been quoted as saying that the Special Military Operation and associated funding has to end by mid-January 2027 or "the bad processes will begin, which will be impossible to stop."

I'm waiting to see good sourcing on that outside of several OSINT sources on the more excitable end of the spectrum.

Apologies for a Twitter-link, but this is the best summary of the current order of battle I've seen for the entire front.

This is actually pretty startling, Russia has been forced to concentrate a colossal amount of its total firepower in the Ukrainian theatre on a front about 30 miles wide. Meanwhile, the rest of the roughly 750-800-mile long front is covered by considerably fewer troops-per-mile. This would be more encouraging if Ukraine did not have to focus the majority of its strength in the same way (or risk the entire centre collapsing). Still, Ukraine has managed to achieve its moderate breakthrough (so far) north of Lyman and is focusing on exploiting that advantage whilst Russia is struggling to fully mobilise against it.

Certainly on the Russian side, they have very limited reserves, what you see is what you get, so whenever Ukraine pressures elsewhere on the line, Russia has to dip into the middle for reinforcements, which weakens the middle. This is why Russia is considering the risks of mobilisation because they need fresh bodies but not civil society descending into chaos at the same time.

Girkin was correct, Russia should have switched from attack to defence in 2026, remaining on the offensive has seriously damaged their ability to hold geographically unfavourable sectors of the front and any secondary or tertiary fronts where Ukraine can establish local superiority can be compromised. Fortunately, nobody listened to him.

The main problem here remains Ukraine being unable to convert local and tactical successes into more widespread strategic ones, but with their manpower situation (though improved over 2025) still strained it's hard to see where they can do that. One small possibility, but some Russian commentators have panicked over it, is that Ukraine can exploit the Lyman breakthrough into a larger-scaled breach into the Russian rear, where the impressive array of fortifications and dug-outs the Russians left some time ago are empty, and they haven't even laid substantial minefields. That could trigger a massive problem leaving the Russian centre vulnerable to a sweeping flanking attack. I consider that highly improbable at the moment.

The USA has just put massive sanctions on VTB Bank for doing business with Iran, that could be huge. VTB is not doing well anyway. US analysis that Russian diesel exports have just dropped to 0.

Ukraine has captured five Colombian POWs. Apparently they were hired by the Russians to operate in rear-echelon areas but within days had been moved to the front. The first Colombian POW convinced the others to surrender, saying none had an urge to die for Russia.

Russian forces have pressed closer to Orikhiv on the Zaporizhzhia front, that could be a critical blow if the town is taken.