The logic I’ve heard is that one of the more palatable defeat conditions for Russia is that they’d rather lose to NATO than Ukraine. So they’re fine to push limits because even the worst case scenario gives them better options.

This. Losing to Ukraine is a massive humiliation. Losing to NATO is “fair” in their eyes. Even now, pro-Russian sources refuse to believe the current drone swarms and highly advanced deep strike drones wrecking havoc on Russian oil infrastructure (see the official state of emergency declared in Crimea and fuel shortages in other regions) are caused by Ukrainian drones. They keep making up some sore loser nonsense about these being NATO drones or some clever trick like drones released from trucks inside Russia. Meanwhile even the Pentagon is buying Ukrainian made drones: https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/ukraine-a...

No - Putin believes he can win, this is to scare NATO.

He's not wrong - this is a war of attrition and Russia is about to raise 500K-1M soldiers - if they can do that, and keep Ukraine on their backs, it's possible Russia could break through.

Unlikely but possible.

Ukraine has difficulty recruiting and equally high desertion rates.

'Eventually something has to give'.

I think it's unlikely and that Ukraine will be able to hold out.

> about to raise 500K-1M soldiers

Russia has developed necromancy?

It offers valuable information on response time.

These are cheap decoy foam drones with less electronics. The amount of fuel decides how far they fly. Favorable wind? They fly further.

> The amount of fuel decides how far they fly. Favorable wind? They fly further.

Is this true for non-decoy non-foam drones and basically everything else that flies, even things with solid boosters? Seems like a strange part to add here as it basically applies to aviation in general, replace "fuel" with "stored energy" and literally all type of "vehicle" fits basically.

A non-decoy drone would presumably go no further than its target, at which point any leftover fuel just adds to the fireball. Whereas making a decoy drone go down before the fuel is exhausted is pointless waste, when instead it could be decoying a little bit longer.

They are cheap but the rockets to shoot them down cost (I've heard but don't count on it) around $480,000 per missile. That is not a minor consideration for a country like Romania.

Absolutely not the ideal weapon to fight them, and better(cheaper) options are coming to shoot down the drones, but until then the price is irrelevant as long as you're preventing loss of human life.

Saving any nonzero amount of lives for any unbounded cost is not necessarily a good trade, if there are ways to save more lives for the same cost, or the same number of lives for a lesser cost.

We're not at the point of making those kind of decisions in Romania, fortunately. Politically right now it would be very dangerous to say that "some of you may die".

The actual volume here is tiny, so the costs pale in comparison to political and economic consequences

Having seen posts in social media by the usual suspects from previous such incidents, it's a way to convince the audience at home that the enemy (NATO) is actually weak and that there's no need to be alarmed.

It is ye olde reconnaisance by the tip of the bayonet. How long can you prod before someone says "ouch!"

For the case of a hot war, knowing the detection and destruction capabilities of your future enemy is valuable.

Putin's only option is to escalate at this point, otherwise he's seen as weak with the war going so well. The Romanians should also be really getting their act together and start shooting the bogeys down.

Turkey didn't think twice before shooting down a Russian Su-24 in 2015 for violating Turkish airspace for about 17 seconds. This is how you "negotiate" with the Russians: first you break their nose when cross some red line, then appologize.

The Turks never apologized to the Russians. They said the incident was regrettable. Which is consistent with the overall "don't fuck with us" message that was being sent.

“This is how you "negotiate" with Turks: you kill dozens of them, then don’t apologize.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Balyun_airstrikes

And in turn Russia's ally Assad was removed from power by HTS aided by yours truly, Türkye.

https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/IN/HTML/IN124...

They've been doing this for years.

I don't know if it's to try and circumvent Ukrainian defenses or to provoke a reaction to sell to domestic audiences though.

Move by whom? Drones straying from the intended route is usually caused by jamming from the other side.

Escalating tensions between Russia and NATO is in Ukraine's, not Russia's, interest.

If NATO as a whole responds, yes it's in Ukraine's interest. If the NATO response is weak and non-cohesive, it is a victory for Russia, demonstrating article 5 isn't worth the paper it's written on. Let's see how things play out. So far we're in "small, plausibly deniable provocation" territory, but if this follows the "salami slice" M.O. we would expect Russia to keep slicing if they feel there's not enough push-back

NATO not going total war over a few airspace incursions does not prove a lack of resolve to defend its territories. Russia is also not salami slicing its way to anything if it's not causing meaningful damage or territorial exchange.

Conversely, Russia(n leadership) would probably love an overreaction by NATO to unlock the use of its conscripted army for "defense," which is not feasible in the current war of aggression.

You’re missing the fact that Ukraine desperately needs missile defense, and these incidents incentivize its neighbors to keep all their defenses to themselves.

No one wants to be blamed when they can’t defend themselves when Russia attacks.

To strip away your rhetoric, you are saying it is Ukraine's fault for Russian drones flying into Romania.

The only loaded rhetoric is coming from you, I merely stated what the incentives are. Note that the situation is somewhat symmetric in that Russia also has an incentive to misdirect Ukrainian drones toward NATO airspace (which has happened).

> misdirect Ukrainian drones toward NATO airspace (which has happened).

Claims to such effect has been made in public by reputable persons but they are not very credible nor has any supporting evidence been shown in public.

Drones getting lost due to GNSS jamming is happening.

But intentional misdirection towards a target would require GNSS spoofing capabilities over an impractically large area and that the drones would be susceptible to simple spoofing. They have satellite navigation, inertial navigation, terrain following cameras and listen to ground based radio sources like cell towers and are designed to operate in hostile RF environment. Just sending a fake GPS signal (several of them) won't make the drone divert to a specific target or direction.

I'm not buying the misdirection story until more compelling evidence is made public.

I made no claims as to whether misdirection is happening or feasible, only that there are incentives for both sides to do so if it is, while there are no incentives for Russia to take on a much larger enemy while it can barely handle Ukraine, which OP was implying was the obvious explanation.

His name indicates a troll.

To counter this conspiracy of yours: Ukraine was in a much poorer position in the past and didn't resort to this type of jamming with the hopes of dragging NATO into the conflict. Today, they are in a much stronger position, striking deep into Russia and even the Caspian sea https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/iran-says-ukrainian-att...

Deescalation by escalation is a standard russian tactic.