From the very first hours of Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine, he has threatened Western countries with terrifying consequences if they dared to intervene. “To anyone who would consider interfering from the outside,” the Russian president warned in a televised address from the Kremlin at the start of the invasion on 24 February 2022, “if you do, you will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history.”
Three days later, as the United States, the United Kingdom, and their allies, rushed weapons to Ukraine, Putin summoned senior defence officials and ordered Russia’s nuclear forces to be placed on a “special regime of combat duty”.
In September 2022, after announcing the annexation of four Ukrainian regions he did not control, and with his troops suffering heavy losses on the battlefield, Putin rattled his nuclear sabre again. This time, he vowed that Moscow would “certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us” if Russia’s territorial integrity, which presumably included the newly “annexed” regions, was threatened. For extra emphasis, he added: “This is not a bluff.”
This turned out to be a bluff. Like he has done with every other supposed red line that has been crossed since the start of this conflict, Putin responded by continuing to bombard Ukrainian towns and cities, just as he had been doing, and avoiding picking a direct fight with the West. “I don’t see any trepidation in Kyiv in response to Russia’s more explicit nuclear threats,” Mykola Bielieskov, a military analyst based in the Ukrainian capital, told me at the time. “You can’t scare a nation that is in an existential fight.”
In recent weeks, Ukraine has attacked Moscow with drones, shelled Russian border towns, and invaded the south-western Russian region of Kursk, where Ukrainian forces currently control hundreds of square miles of territory. It is the first time since the Second World War that Russia has been invaded by a foreign army, something that would have been unimaginable at the start of this war. At the same time, the West has pushed past many of its self-imposed restrictions, sending long-range weapons systems, tanks, F-16 fighter jets, and allowing Ukraine to hit targets across the Russian border in its own defence.
Now, once again, Putin has announced a new red line. This far, and no further, he says. This time, his language is clearer and more direct. If Nato countries lift their restrictions on the use of long-range western missiles – such as the UK’s Storm Shadow missile – to strike targets deep inside Russia, Putin warned in St Petersburg on 12 September, this will mean they “are at war with Russia”.
“If this decision is made, it will mean nothing short of direct involvement – it will mean that Nato countries, the United States, and European countries are parties to the war in Ukraine,” Putin said. “And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.”
Is this another bluff? Almost certainly. But Putin’s warning is designed to make us focus on the danger that it might not be – that this time, he really means what he says, and we are now poised on the threshold of World War III. More specifically, this threat is aimed at a primary audience of two – Prime Minister Keir Starmer and President Joe Biden as they meet in Washington to discuss this very issue.
This is a fortuitous time for Ukraine to have an experienced international lawyer at the helm in Downing Street. Starmer clearly understands the legal questions involved and has indicated previously that Ukraine would be acting lawfully if it strikes military targets inside Russia from which attacks on its own territory are being launched. The UK – under the previous conservative government – has also led the way in the provision of earlier critical weapons systems, such as Challenger tanks and Storm Shadow missiles, at a time when the American and German governments were wavering.
This is presumably why Russia singled out the UK on 13 September, expelling six British diplomats nominally accused of espionage, in response to “the numerous unfriendly steps taken by London”. The Kremlin is doing everything it can to signal that these latest threats are serious, and Biden and Starmer should think again.
There is also a political angle for Putin to work in Washington. He is well aware that the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump – who has threatened to cut off aid to Ukraine and will not say publicly that he wants Kyiv to win this war – is campaigning on the grounds that he would put an end to this conflict whereas the Democrats are leading the country into a new world war. Putin doesn’t have to launch nuclear weapons or bomb a Nato country to hurt US interests and inflame an already volatile situation. He could supply North Korea with the satellite launch capabilities or submarine technology Pyongyang covets, for instance, or help Iran and its proxies target US facilities in the Middle East. The Russian president doesn’t have to risk his own survival to threaten meaningful retaliation against the US.
The problem, as with every single one of Putin’s earlier threats, is that one cannot breezily discount the words of the man who controls the world’s largest nuclear arsenal.
Putin has made catastrophic strategic decisions before, such as invading Ukraine in 2022. He has surrounded himself with an ever-decreasing circle of confidantes, who amplify his own paranoid world view. He has made clear, on multiple occasions, that he believes Russia is already fighting an undeclared war with the wider West. He is already sourcing weapons and technology from North Korea, Iran, and China. Russian intelligence agencies are already waging what Kaja Kallas, the EU’s new foreign policy chief, has called a “shadow war” with a campaign of sabotage, arson attacks, and attempted assassinations across Europe.
The question is whether the Russian president believes this is the moment to bring that war out of the shadows and enter direct conflict with the West. His response to every single broken red line so far suggests that the answer is a resounding no. But the chilling dilemma for his Western counterparts is that the only way they can know for certain that this is another bluff, is to call it.
[See also: Dmytro Kuleba: On China, we know much more than we’ve said]
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