Boris Bondarev
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an interview with Russian media following the Forum on United Cultures, once again threatened Western countries. In his speech, Putin emphasized that allowing the use of Western, primarily US-made, weapons in strikes on Russian territory would mean direct participation of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries in the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine (Kremlin.ru; Lenta.ru, September 12). This statement caused great controversy in the Western political environment, but it is worth taking a more sober look at the situation.
This is not the first time Putin has threatened war with NATO countries. Poorly veiled threats of using nuclear weapons were made on the first day of the so-called “special military operation” when Putin declared that if anyone tried to interfere in the conflict, the response would be unimaginably harsh, using all available measures (see EDM, March 7, 2022). Moreover, Putin instructed his defense minister to put Russia’s strategic nuclear forces on special alert. This caused much controversy in the expert community, as such a regime is not prescribed in the relevant nuclear strategy documents. Putin’s signal was clearly intended to stop Western countries from helping Ukraine, but it did not work (RBC, February 27, 2022). Since then, various Russian officials have repeatedly threatened the use of nuclear weapons, raising the topic with varying degrees of persuasiveness and eloquence. A hawkish example is former Russian president and current Deputy Chairperson of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, who repeatedly warns of a possible nuclear response in all forms of media available to him (Rossiiskaya Gazeta, July 23, 2023; RBC, February 7; T.me/medveev_telegram, June 28, September 14).
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