Threats made by Russian officials about retaliation against countries interfering in Ukraine may serve a dual purpose of warning off Western powers while also building favor among Russian citizens should a full conflict with NATO break out, according to experts.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said last year during a Wednesday address that any countries who ‘create a strategic threat to Russia’ during its war in Ukraine can expect ‘retaliatory strikes’ that would be ‘lightning-fast.’
Putin vs NATO
Days before, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview that ‘NATO is essentially going to war with Russia through a proxy and arming that proxy.’
Various experts who spoke believe Russian officials have increased the amount of threatening rhetoric as a way of stoking fear in NATO allies.
Some experts also feel it’s an effort to win over the hearts and minds of the Russian public.
‘All along, Russian domestic propaganda has emphasized that Russia is at war not with Ukraine, but with NATO and the West,’ Yuri Zhukov, an associate professor at the University of Michigan, told Newsweek.
READ ALSO: Is Putin gearing up arms PRODUCTION for a long war against Ukraine or NATO?
‘Behind every Ukrainian military success, in this narrative, there is a NATO officer telling the Ukrainian where, when and whom to shoot.’
‘I think from the perspective of Moscow, they want to build a case that this whole thing was started by NATO and the United States,’ Jonathan Katz, the director of Democracy Initiatives and a senior fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States, told Newsweek.
Katz added that he feels Putin is ‘using the boogeyman of NATO, of the United States, to justify the actions that he is taking to the Russian domestic population.’
