World leaders, opposition figures and independent media have reacted to President Putin’s comments on the danger of the Ukrainian proxy war turning into a hot war with NATO if the latter greenlights the use of its long-range strike systems to attack Russia.
The White House chose to pretend it didn't hear Putin's warning, with Biden press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre telling reporters Thursday that she wouldn’t “get into hypotheticals” or “internal policy deliberations” after being asked how “concerned” Washington should be.
Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder assured the press there was “no change to our policy” for the moment, and referred back to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s comments last week that US support for Kiev would continue, and that “there is no one capability…no silver bullet that is going to enable Ukraine to succeed.”
On his way to Washington to meet Biden, UK PM Keir Starmer deflected questions on the missile issue, claiming Russia “started this conflict” and could “end” it at any moment, and that “Ukraine’s got a right to self-defense.” Starmer added, however, that permission to use British long-range missiles would not be granted Friday at his meeting with Biden, and claimed London is not seeking “any conflict" with Moscow.
Berlin hinted its negative position to NATO’s high-stakes gamble, with a government spokesman saying Chancellor Scholz’s stance prohibiting the delivery of German Taurus missiles to Ukraine remains unaltered and that Scholz is “very decisive on this issue.”
A European Commission spokesperson said discussions on the lifting of restrictions on weapons use “continue” and that the bloc is divided.
British opposition politician David Kurten called on NATO to immediately “de-escalate the Ukraine conflict and end hostility with Russia.”
French opposition politician Florian Philippot accused NATO of trying to trigger WW3 before the US election, where a Trump victory “would be a catastrophe for the hawks.” Putin "has warned that this would mean a NATO-Russia war, in other words a world war! France must withdraw from this madness!” Philippot urged.
“We are literally playing with fire,” foreign policy analyst and US Army combat vet David Davis said in a video analysis devoted to Putin's statement, warning that that Western leaders don’t seem to understand that their actions are edging the planet toward a massive conflict.
“The Red line is clear as day. The ball is now in NATO’s court. Let’s pray they know what they’re doing,” Irish journalist Chey Bowes tweeted. “It now seems obvious that Zelensky’s ‘victory plan’ is to lose. To lose so badly, that his embarrassed ‘partners’ will have to drag us to the brink of WW3 to save his sniveling dictatorship,” he added.
Russia Has the Means to Respond
Russia’s proven ability to respond to previous NATO provocations in Ukraine “is a key reason why Washington is right now reluctant to agree to other longer-range weapons being used to further target inside Russia,” former British MP and UK Defense Academy senior research fellow Matthew Gordon-Banks told Sputnik, commenting on alliance countries' apparent slow-walking of the missile deliberations after Putin's warning.
“NATO is already involved in the conflict in Ukraine and has been for a long time. It has supplied weaponry and equipment, trained Ukrainian personnel and largely pulled the trigger on missiles beyond the capability of the Ukrainian military,” Gordon-Banks said.
Pointing to the recent Russian missile strike on a Ukrainian army and mercenary training base in Poltava in response to increasingly aggressive Ukrainian attacks on Russia, Gordon-Banks cited the attack as evidence, clear to Kiev’s NATO curators, that Russia is ready and, more importantly able, to respond.
“These Russian missiles evaded US Patriot defense systems and three further European air defense systems. It is also believed that most, if not all, of the Swedish Saab defense and aviation advisors were killed, following which the Swedish foreign minister resigned his post,” the observer said.
Therefore, “whilst the Western media and key opinion-formers like to say that Russian warnings by President Putin are a ‘bluff’, the reality is that Washington knows perfectly well what could happen, and the Poltava area attacks, [plus the downing] of an F-16 and its pilot are a measured response to the recent escalation,” Gordon-Banks said.
As for the British and French missiles available to Kiev, they “do not have a range to hit significant targets deep inside Russia,” with the Russia withdrawing “much key equipment beyond their reach," according to the observer. "In addition, superior Russian electronic warfare capability and air defense systems where available have been successful in bringing down a significant percentage of Western equipment,” he said.
The former Conservative Party MP expressed relief at President Putin’s “utmost care” up to now in reacting to Western provocations, pointing out that “others in Moscow might wish to act less cautiously.”
“Meanwhile, the British public largely gains its information from mainstream media, which is heavily biased in Ukraine’s favor, but a significant minority understand why Russia has taken the action it has to protect its own security. I can only hope that following the US presidential election we may see a greater move toward considering negotiation; but that is not due to any candidate winning but rather more their politicians being free from the constraints domestically of electioneering,” Gordon-Banks summed up.
NATO's War on Russia Spinning out of Control
The Zelensky regime's sponsors “have already heard” President Putin’s warning about the risks of a direct Russia-NATO war if the West greenlights the use of its long-range missiles to attack Russia, and have started “reversing course” on their bellicose antics accordingly, political and military analyst Sergey Poletaev told Sputnik.
The noise surrounding the lifting of restrictions signifies a realization by both Kiev and its patrons “that Ukraine is losing,” the observer suggested, arguing that Russia’s strategy of exhausting Ukraine’s military is “paying off,” with the front collapsing in the Pokrovsk direction, in the Donbass in general and in Kursk.
“All of this is evidence that our strategy is beginning to bear fruit. Consequently, the West’s task is to ‘break’ this game. They can’t do so by military means, by force alone, because Ukraine doesn’t have enough strength, and the West itself doesn’t want to fight. Therefore, if it is possible to reverse course using high-precision missile strikes, they will try to do so,” Poletaev said.
Putin’s warning is aimed at clearly establishing Russia’s “red lines,” according to Poletaev, and at explaining “to everyone that ‘hey guys – here they are, if you cross them, we won’t be held responsible for our actions.’” Russia must balance such warnings against the risks of the world turning into a pile of nuclear ash, the observer stressed.
That’s the issue, fraught with risks, before the Russian leadership. And the president, educated as a lawyer, has throughout his political career worked painstakingly to provide a legal basis for all of his major decisions, according to Poletaev.
Poletayev concurred with Putin’s argument about NATO’s role in intelligence-gathering and targeting, saying the Ukrainian pilots which would be tasked with launching missiles in Russia’s direction would simply be tasked with pressing a button, with “all the preparation, all the reconnaissance – where to fire, in what volume, using what means, and technical issues – all of this is done by Western military specialists."
This, Putin said in his remarks Thursday, is the key reason why the risks of a direct Russia-NATO war would escalate so dramatically if the Western bloc greenlit the use of its missiles to target Russia.