Russian President Vladimir Putin has practically admitted that Crimea is not Russian. This is a personal humiliation for the Russian leader, because the annexation of Crimea was seen in the Kremlin as the greatest achievement of Putin's rule and a symbol of Russia's return to the top of international relations.
This says Atlantic Council, commenting on the major diplomatic breakthrough in recent days by Ukraine, which was given the green light to attack Russian territory with Western weapons. This caused the usual hysteria and threats from Moscow.
Speaking in Tashkent, Putin warned European leaders of “serious consequences”. Dmitry Medvedev, currently deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, said it would be a "fatal mistake" for Western leaders to believe that Russia is not ready to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine or individual NATO member states.
Russia has threatened Western countries with nuclear war if their weapons attack Russian territory. And here comes the logical question – Why didn't Russia start a nuclear war after Ukraine successfully attacked military targets in Crimea for years? Wasn't Crimea Russian?
At least officially, there is no ambiguity in Moscow about the status of the Ukrainian regions claimed by the Kremlin. According to the Russian constitution, the Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions of Ukraine, along with the Crimean peninsula, are already part of the Russian Federation.
Technically speaking, the five Ukrainian provinces subject to unilateral Russian "annexation" should now enjoy the same protection as the rest of Putin's realm. In practice, however, it has long been clear that Moscow has no intention of expanding its nuclear umbrella to cover these regions, or even trying to enforce its red lines on the use of Western weapons.
The Battle of Kherson is a particularly vivid demonstration of the gap between Russian rhetoric and Russian reality. The only regional capital captured during the entire Russian invasion, Kherson was liberated in November 2022, less than two months after Putin declared it “Russian forever”. Instead of reaching for his nuclear button, Putin responded to this embarrassing setback by ordering his defeated troops to withdraw quietly across the Dnieper River.
For more than a decade, Putin has insisted that the occupied Ukrainian peninsula is now part of Russia and rejected all attempts to discuss its status. However, Ukraine has successfully attacked ships, ports and even the Russian military headquarters in Crimea. If Kherson was an embarrassment for Putin, Crimea is a personal humiliation for him. Most importantly, it did not lead to World War III. Instead, Putin ordered his fleet to withdraw far away.
The apparent inconsistency in the Kremlin's public stance regarding attacks on Russian soil has a number of practical implications for the further conduct of the war. It highlights the flexibility of Russia's red lines and reinforces perceptions that Moscow seeks primarily to exploit Western fears of escalation rather than establish any real red lines.
It is becoming increasingly apparent that Russia's constant nuking is losing steam. By making regular nuclear threats that never lead to action, the Kremlin has weakened the entire concept of nuclear deterrence and made Russia look toothless. The apparent reluctance of the Kremlin to treat the “annexed“ regions of Ukraine as entirely Russian, directly contradicts Moscow's own efforts to portray the occupation of Ukrainian lands as irreversible.
The odds of a nuclear apocalypse are greatly exaggerated. This should help Kiev's Western partners overcome their self-defeating fear of escalation and encourage them to finally provide Ukraine with the tools to defeat Russia in the war it started.