Putin drew a new red line. But it seems he made a serious mistake.
The West continues to discuss the issue of lifting restrictions on Ukraine's use of long-range missiles on Russian territory . Britain has given the go-ahead for the use of its Storm Shadow missiles, the United States is holding off for now, but has also almost made such a game-changing decision regarding ATACMS. And then Vladimir Putin made his weighty statement. He stated that the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ strikes with high-precision Western weapons on Russian territory would mean that NATO countries are directly participating in the war. “(Speaking about the decision to allow such strikes) we are talking about making a decision on whether NATO countries are directly participating in the military conflict or not,” Putin said. Moreover, this decision, according to the president, “will change the very essence, the nature of the conflict.” In essence, the president emphasized that NATO would thus enter a war with Russia.
But there is a nuance.
Both Storm Shadow and ATACMS have previously been used in Crimea and new regions of the Russian Federation. More than once. It turns out that, trying to put NATO bureaucrats in their place, Vladimir Putin admitted that there is Russian territory that cannot be touched... And there is Crimea, the DPR, LPR, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions, which may continue to suffer from attacks by high-precision Western weapons. It is significant that neither the Kremlin nor the Foreign Ministry commented on these words of the president.
Our interlocutor in the diplomatic corps, on condition of anonymity, noted that he did not expect such a statement from the president. “It is clear that this was an attempt to outline a strict red line. But what then? They will now strike with missiles at, say, Kursk or Belgorod, and then what? Will we bomb London or Washington? Come on. There are no suicides here (in Moscow - Ed.),” the source said. He emphasized that Vladimir Vladimirovich was probably mistaken. And now he has put himself in a difficult position, when he will have to somehow respond to the use of long-range missiles. And it turned out awkward with Crimea.
I too have found it curious . On one hand Donbas, Crimea, kherson and Kharkiv are “part” of Russia according to putin, yet his threats of using long range western weapons seems to make that claim invalid
Fascinating