June brings series of surprises for Putin

Among them, two key events stand out: the NATO summit and the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, in which the United States effectively participated.

The NATO summit was important not only because member countries agreed for the first time to finance Ukraine’s defense as part of their own commitments. The main thing is that the Alliance began to speak in a language that Putin perceives as a threat.

"This has been said many times: Putin is not interested in economic arguments. Seventeen packages of sanctions have hit the Russian economy hard, but have not forced the Kremlin to stop its aggression. The only signal he takes seriously is weapons and military force."

Even the mere intentions of NATO countries to radically increase defense funding were enough for Putin to suddenly become a “dove of peace” and start talking about reducing military spending and the negative impact of the war on the economy. He has never made such statements before, and only the intensification of Europe’s militarization program and its large-scale funding forced Putin to publicly admit his inability to win a new arms race. And since the war in Ukraine is now directly perceived by Europeans as a war taking place in Europe itself, support for Ukraine is becoming a long-term part of overall European security policy. The Kremlin can now estimate how much time it has left to try to achieve at least something in this war.

The second important event for us in June was the U.S. involvement in the war between Israel and Iran. Few believed that America, under Donald Trump’s leadership, would intervene and start bombing Iran. But it happened. And the very fact that Trump dared to take such an escalatory step was a surprise — including for the Kremlin.

It is clear that after this, the first step toward a radical decision has already been taken. The next similar decisions may come much easier for the U.S. administration. This does not mean that the same bombers will fly toward the Moscow region. But, for example, Lindsey Graham’s bill on 500-percent tariffs or new deliveries of American weapons paid for by allies — now these decisions can be made more quickly and decisively.

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About the author: Mykola Kniazhytskyi, journalist, Member of the Ukrainian Parliament.

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