This is how Putin waves the red flag of nuclear power to distract us

The Kremlin is well aware that the adjective ‘nuclear’ clouds the minds of Europeans, paralyses them, obsesses them and obscures what is happening on the ground. A few hours before Vladimir Putin took to the stage at Valdai to speak of “mass destruction”, a major bridge in Kyiv had been struck; this bridge carries the metro trains and connects the two banks of the River Dnipro, thereby linking the neighbourhoods on either side of the city. However, the drone strike did not attract as much attention as Putin’s words; addressing his audience, he said that we must work together to prevent the most dangerous weapons from being used, otherwise “a loaded gun will go off sooner or later”. The Kremlin leader blended concern with a threat, displaying a look of apprehension for the motherland and one of intimidation towards the outside world, before returning to the subject of Kaliningrad, the exclave which, according to Moscow, feels threatened by NATO, and assured: “If it came to a direct attack on Russia, on Kaliningrad, the question of using all the weapons at our disposal would immediately arise.” The ominous undertone of the threat – the word “all” – was intended to be interpreted in the minds of Europeans as meaning “nuclear”. The Kremlin knows which spectres to conjure up to divert our attention from Kyiv under missile attack or even the Ukrainian army’s counter-offensive in the Donetsk Oblast – Operation Vivaldi, which debunks Putin’s lies about his ability to conquer the entire region by force of arms.

The Kremlin’s red banner, designed to grab our attention, is part of the war; it forms part of its arsenal and falls under the tactics we refer to as ‘hybrid warfare’, whereas for Russia it is simply war. "Adding adjectives to the word 'war' undermines the threats we face," Maria Domanska, deputy director of the Russia department at the Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW), tells Il Foglio. "If something is 'hybrid', it is so far removed from being serious that we need not concern ourselves with it; meanwhile, Moscow feels it is at war with NATO and European countries. At a time when Russia poses the greatest threat to European security, it is essential to understand that, having failed to defeat Ukraine by purely military means, it is seeking alternative methods – and this is where we need to grasp the Russian meaning of the word ‘war’.”

In the West, war consists of tanks and missiles, frontal attacks and buildings being blown up. For the Russians, it is more than that, and not just now, but has always been so: ‘Russian strategic culture encompasses a whole spectrum of different means, from disinformation to cyber-attacks, from psychological operations to all manner of sabotage’. Domanska explains: “Each of these means serves the same purpose: to defeat the enemy.” These are more cost-effective methods, requiring fewer resources than military ones, and this is by no means something Moscow has only just thought of. “Historically, the Russian army has never been strong enough to become a military power capable of defeating Europe; we see this in Ukraine. That is why Moscow has always invested in other areas, expanding non-military operations, including disinformation. But if we ask ourselves what objectives Russia wishes to achieve, nothing has changed since 2021, when it proposed a draft agreement to the United States calling for NATO’s withdrawal to the 1999 borders”, i.e. excluding Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and the Baltic states, which Moscow would like to see as a buffer zone where it could exploit a natural geographical advantage and expand its influence. “Moscow is aiming for agreements with individual states, and thus for the collapse of NATO and the European Union: by negotiating on a capital-by-capital basis, it would gain many advantages.” The repeated nuclear threat, disguised as concern for the global balance of arms, forms part of the arsenal of psychological warfare; “it is based on intimidation and blackmail, including nuclear blackmail”. It is based on Russia’s assertion that: if you do not stop helping Ukraine, we will attack, because you will become legitimate military targets. Moscow is working to reverse the cause-and-effect relationship: what caused the war, and who is the aggressor. Indeed, yesterday Putin said that the attack on Ukraine was a matter of necessity in the face of the threat posed by Ukrainian nationalism: “The truth is that we did not start the war; rather, the war was started against us.”

In Russia, everything operates as a single, centralised system. Every aspect of life is answerable to the Kremlin, which shapes and invents it. The war, Putin and this model of Russia are presented to citizens – who are shielded from any form of independent information – as the sole guarantee of survival, whilst abroad this is conveyed as a warning that this is the only stable Russia, and that all other alternatives pose a danger even to the West. The Kremlin is trying to convince many foreign commentators of this, working to change the entire paradigm of perception, so that the country which started a war against Ukraine is, in fact, a guarantee of stability. “Once again, we need to think in historical terms,” says Domanska. “Russia has lost wars; it collapsed as both the Tsarist Empire and the Soviet Union, and none of these events made the West any more vulnerable. On the contrary, they strengthened its security. Russia, on the other hand, is now fuelling a phobia of instability.”

The OSW is a Polish think tank, and Poland – which has been at the forefront of solidarity with Ukraine since 2014 – is among the countries most targeted by disinformation. Through sustained efforts, Moscow has begun to stoke anti-Ukrainian sentiment, which has entered the political arena and is now even an election issue. “Moscow’s campaigns often fuel pre-existing social tensions,” says Domanska. In recent months, however, there has been an increase in acts of sabotage, drone raids and arson; according to the analyst, this rise is attributable to next year’s elections: the closer we get to the vote, the more Moscow will broaden its range of threats, to push Poles into believing that helping Kyiv is a risk.

For Russia, this too is war; no adjectives are needed – it’s all part of the same arsenal.