Russian President Vladimir Putin is the king of empty threats. Very few policy makers in the West still take his warnings and fearmongering rhetoric seriously. As a result, the Ukraine war could soon enter a new stage where Russia will feel serious consequences resulting from Putin’s adventure in the neighboring country.
Over the past few months, Kyiv has been pressuring the United States and its allies to allow the Ukrainian military to use Western-made weapons to strike targets deep in Russian territory. Although Washington is reportedly hesitant to give Ukraine the green light for such an action, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claims that the American weapons “are already being used on the territory of the Russian Federation outside the conflict zone in Ukraine.”
If true, it remains unclear why Russia has not responded, even though Putin repeatedly warned the West that it is “risking a global war over Ukraine.”
“Western nations must realize that we also have weapons that can hit targets on their territory”, Putin said on February 28, pointing out that “all this really threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons and the destruction of civilization.”
But Ukraine and the West did not fall for his bluff. Instead, they decided to raise the stakes.
On May 22, Ukraine attacked a Russian strategic early warning radar site near the city of Armavir in southern Russia. The facility is part of Russia’s nuclear ballistic missile early warning system. Its primary function was to detect and track intercontinental ballistic missiles and to determine if Russia was under nuclear attack. The Kremlin turned a blind eye to the Ukrainian action.
Just a few days later, following Putin’s visit to Minsk where he discussed with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko “security and exercises with tactical nuclear weapons”, Ukraine once again attacked a Russian strategic military facility. The Voronezh-M radar, located near the city of Orsk close to the Russian-Kazakh border – almost two thousand kilometers (1242 miles) from Ukraine – came under attack from a Ukrainian drone. Even though the radar is of strategic importance for Russia, providing long distance monitoring of airspace against ballistic missile attack and aircraft monitoring, the Russian media widely ignored the attack.
Ukraine’s actions came not only after Putin’s meeting with Lukashenko, but also after Russia’s military launched drills involving tactical nuclear weapons. Kyiv has, therefore, clearly demonstrated that it does not fear a potential Russian nuclear response.
According to Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, “The Americans have told the Russians that if you explode a nuke, even if it doesn’t kill anybody, we will hit all your targets in Ukraine with conventional weapons, we’ll destroy all of them.”
In other words, Washington seems to have drawn clear red lines. The ball will soon be in the Russian court.
Sooner or later, Ukraine could get formal approval to use the American-made weapons to strike Russian territory. If the Kremlin responds with tactical nuclear weapons, it risks direct Western involvement in the Ukraine war. If it continues turning a blind eye to Ukrainian attacks, the Russian military and civilian infrastructure will suffer significant damage.
Given that Moscow, almost two and a half years after it launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, never even attempted to strike bridges on the Dniper river, or hit the Ukrainian Defense Ministry building in Kyiv, it is unlikely to use nuclear weapons in response to Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory. As a result, Ukraine will undoubtedly continue defending itself by means of military actions directed at the enemy’s territory, while the West will continue gradually raising the stakes, proving that the Kremlin’s “red lines” do not exist.
According to reports, France will send instructors to train Ukrainian soldiers on Ukrainian soil, which indicates that Paris does not take seriously the Kremlin’s threat that the French military personnel in Ukraine “would be seen as legitimate targets by the Russian army.” NATO does not seem to be afraid of Russia either. The US-dominated alliance Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg openly urged lifting restrictions on Ukraine’s strikes with Western weapons on Russian territory.
But that does not mean that the West will take all necessary measures to help Ukraine win the war.
As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently stressed, Kyiv’s Western partners would like Ukraine “to win in such a way that Russia does not lose”, as they reportedly fear that Moscow’s defeat could lead to “unpredictable geopolitical consequences.” That is why the West will likely allow Kyiv to use Western-made weapons to attack targets in Russia, although not in a way that could destabilize Putin and seriously undermine the Russian war capacity.
Even though Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory can hardly help Kyiv achieve strategic victories in the Donbass and the Kharkiv regions, the Kremlin cannot endlessly ignore Ukrainian strikes. Certain factions within the Russian ruling elite (namely, the so-called siloviki block) could begin demanding that Moscow respond fiercely. But Putin is unlikely to be able to do that, as he promised former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett not to kill Zelensky. He is also unlikely to bomb Ukrainian strategically important bridges or the so-called decision-making center in Kyiv either, as Ukraine can respond by launching a joint action with Moldova aiming to capture Transnistria – Moldova’s breakaway region sandwiched between Moldova in the West and Ukraine in the East, where Russia has only around 1,500 soldiers.
Putin’s position is, therefore, very difficult. He knows that Ukraine will continue striking Russian territory, but he cannot respond in a way that some “hardliners” in Moscow would expect, but will likely have to take half-measures. He knows that the United States and its allies will give Kyiv the green-light to use Western-made weapons on Russian territory, but he cannot use nuclear weapons against Western countries, as that is where his oligarchs’ children and grandchildren live.
In the coming weeks and months, it will be very difficult for Putin to save face.
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