Amid a new upsurge in the fighting in the Ukrainian War, the West has shown that it has bought the gamble made on the real and rhetorical battlefield by Vladimir Putin in recent weeks.
The European Union’s diplomatic chief said on Thursday that a Russian nuclear strike against its neighbor would result in the “annihilation” of Putin’s army, and the German prime minister raised his usual measured tone and said that the Russian war is “a crusade against liberal democracy”.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security, said in Bruges (Belgium) that “it must be clear that any nuclear attack against Ukraine will generate a response”. “It will not be a nuclear response, but one so powerful on the military side that the Russian army would be annihilated,” he said.
It is the clearest statement on the subject by any Western authority so far. The Americans, owners of the ball when it comes to the military defense of European allies in NATO, had already spoken of “catastrophic consequences” in the case of the use of the atomic bomb, but did not draw them in public.
German Olaf Scholz spoke in a video recorded for a conference of Social Democrats in Berlin. “It’s not just about Ukraine. They [Putin e seus apoiadores] consider the war against Ukraine to be part of a larger crusade, a crusade against liberal democracy,” he said.
Throughout the war, Scholz, who succeeded Angela Merkel at the end of last year and inherited a legacy of proximity between Berlin and Moscow marked by a great energy partnership, alternated between conciliatory and harsher speeches.
In practice, it has taken care of its backyard by looking for alternatives to Russian gas and has tripled the German military budget this year, breaking decades of restrictions in the sector. But he was always economical in helping Kiev: it took three months to send a mere three Gepard anti-aircraft armored vehicles and another four to deliver the first units of the anti-aircraft system based on the Iris-T missile.
About the content, Scholz is not wrong. Putin has made it clear since 2004 that he sees the relationship with the West as a dispute over civilizations and values, and the perceived advance of Western structures on the ex-Soviet periphery as an existential threat.
The Russian reaffirmed all this when he spoke at the event in which he annexed four territories of Ukraine, from which he had already taken Crimea, without conflict, in 2014. Before, he had promised to defend the areas, which he does not fully control, with “all necessary means.” “.
That, added to more direct speeches from him and allies, is a nuclear threat. Although from a military point of view it is somewhat dubious and politically suicidal, the use of a low-power tactical atomic bomb is seen as a low but existent possibility among analysts.
The topic has become recurrent, and NATO is holding a meeting of its defense ministers this Thursday to discuss the deployment of more anti-aircraft systems. Since Monday, after a series of defeats for Kiev and the attack on the bridge linking Crimea to mainland Russia, Putin has signaled a change in the way the war is conducted — or a way to buy time, scaring the West, while mobilizing reinforcements.
Missile attacks and kamikaze drones went on to deliberately hit civilian infrastructure targets, although this happened throughout the conflict in one form or another. So the Westerners want to send more effective anti-aircraft systems and long-range missiles to Kiev, which the Russians see as a red line in terms of involvement.
But those lines are quite blurred, and the West has been raising the bar and doubling down on Putin’s threats little by little. Now, they debate equipping Ukraine with American Patriot, Israeli Arrow-3 or more German Iris-T systems.
As the Americans themselves have complained, such moves tend to take time and are insufficient on the part of Europeans. The fact that Washington does not have populations and industry dependent on Russian heating and gas power helps explain the scenario, but the pressure is mounting.
On the Russian side, the rhetoric followed suit. Commenting on President Volodymyr Zelensky’s request to be admitted to NATO, a remote possibility even in the long term, but which was used as a “casus belli” by Putin, a member of the Russian Security Council said that the result would be the Third World War.
“The suicidal nature of such a step is understood by NATO members as well,” said Alexander Vediktov, according to Interfax news agency. Another who spoke again about the risk of a wide conflict was Belarusian dictator Aleksandr Lukachenko, who denied having any intention of attacking Ukraine despite having formed a joint border troop with his ally Putin.
Putin makes a double agenda
Already his boss, Putin, bet this Thursday on a dual agenda. In the diplomatic field, he participated in a meeting of leaders of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia, in Astana (Kazakhstan).
He met with figures such as Qatari Emir Tamim bin Ahmad al-Thani as part of his energetic ballet with the Arab world — the Saudis have spearheaded the movement to cut world oil production, helping the Kremlin dodge Western pressure to limit their exports.
More importantly, he was with a suspicious ally, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. As both have only talked about the economy publicly, notably expanding the existing network of Russian gas pipelines that go to the country, the expectation is about what has not been said openly — some mediation about the Ukraine crisis.
On the ground, however, Putin continues to tighten the tourniquet after spending September on the defensive, losing territories he occupied to the northeast and seeing successful Kiev incursions into Kherson (south) and Donetsk (east), 2 of the 4 annexed provinces. According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, 40 towns and villages were bombed between Wednesday (12) and this Thursday.
After a retreat through about 20km north of Kherson, the Russians appear to have established a more structured defensive line, according to an analysis by the British Ministry of Defence. They press in the Mikolaiv region. The reported ferocity of the fighting prompted the pro-Russian local government to turn to Moscow for help in evacuating residents from the front lines.
On the other hand, the Ukrainians again provoked the Russians with an artillery bombardment that hit a residential building in Belgorodo, a region close to the neighbor’s border. The local government did not say if there were any casualties. There have already been drone attacks on power plants and other incidents, but the escalation demonstrates Kiev’s intention to take the war, albeit symbolically, into Russia.
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