What lies behind Vladimir Putin’s “nuclear fear” tactic

Vladimir Putin threatens Europe and, in turn, the United States with the use of nuclear weapons if the Europeans decide, as French President Emmanuel Macron has suggested, to send troops to Ukraine. Putin said Thursday: “Russia’s opponents must remember that we we have weapons capable of hitting targets on their territory and what they propose scares the whole world. All this threatens a conflict with nuclear weapons and, therefore, the destruction of civilization.”

The Russian president continued, in a speech before the entire Russian elite: “We remember the fate of those who once sent their contingents to our territory, but the consequences for the interventionists Now they will be much more tragic”. Putin was referring to the Nazi invasion of Soviet territory during World War II.

Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has prompted these threats several times over the past two years, especially from Putin’s confidant and former president Dimitri Medvedev. Russia has said, for example, that it would use the weapon if its territory was attacked.

And Russia considers Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula occupied in 2014, as its territory. Ukraine has attacked Crimea on several occasions, including the Russian fleet in the port of Sevastopol. without Moscow making good on its threats. One could also understand that when Ukrainian troops recaptured parts of the Kharkiv and Kherson provinces, which Russia claims to have annexed, they would gamble with the risk of receiving a nuclear retaliation that never came and that no one expected.

Why is Putin trying to scare people with nuclear weapons? European diplomats have been explaining for years that the Russian president will not use them until there is an existential military threat against Russia. Not because he will lose territories in Ukraine that no one on the entire planet recognizes as Russian. Because it would become a pariah state. However, Putin uses that threat, these diplomats say in a version supported by security experts, for several reasons.

The first reason is new and has to do with the words of the Frenchman Macron, in which he did not rule out the Europeans sending troops to Ukraine, something that most European governments in recent days had ruled out and which for now only the Estonian Prime Minister, Kaja Kallas, supported. Estonia has few armed forces.

The French Ministry of Defense had to intervene to clarify that Macron was not referring to sending troops to fight against the Russians, side by side with Ukrainian soldiers, but rather to carry out rearguard duties that would allow Ukrainian soldiers to go to the front , such as mine clearance, soldier training or logistics. Putin may believe that the participation of the Europeans, supported by the United States, will lead to a reversal of the war and push his troops out of Ukraine.

The context

The second reason is due to the German position. The head of the German government, Olaf Scholz, is the one who has most spread the fear of Russian reaction every time Western governments have increased their support. Scholz always dragged his feet. He was the last one to give in when the artillery had to be sent or when the sending of tanks had to be approved.

Now it is the last to reject the sending of medium-range missiles (hundreds of kilometers) such as the German Taurus, when similar French, American and British missiles are already in the hands of the Ukrainians. Scholz will now once again address the topic of nuclear fear, added to Putin’s reference to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.

The third reason directly concerns American citizens, who would be tempted to vote for Donald Trump and not for Joe Biden in November (if they were finally candidates in the presidential elections) to force their country to abandon Ukraine and the risks that this entails helping a country country that Russia is trying to wipe off the map.

The fourth reason refers directly to the European elections of 9 June. Polls show an increase in far-right parties some of whom are reluctant to help Ukraine. If Putin wants to play divide and conquer with the Europeans, his best asset would be for the far right to be as powerful as possible after the next continental elections.

And I could understand that the best way to achieve this goal would be to scare European citizens with nuclear weapons, a fear experienced in Europe during the decades of the Cold War (1945-1990), but which Europeans under 40, almost half a continent, they don’t remember it.