Oreshnik becomes key element of blackmail: Putin vows revenge

Later, he instructed the so-called combat testing of the Oreshnik system, which has recently been mentioned in almost every speech by the Russian president and at every meeting with military personnel or journalists. Oreshnik has become the main element of blackmail. But against whom: Ukraine or the West? 

It is worth noting that a year ago, when there was also an attack on Kazan, Putin did not comment on this event at all. Now, however, he appears entirely different: furious and ready for retaliation. But the target audience of these statements is neither the Ukrainian leadership nor the Ukrainian population. The experienced officer of the State Security Committee, Putin, is now working with a new client—Donald Trump. He is essentially exploiting all the fears and insecurities of the future American president. 

Trump speaks about massive destruction in Ukraine, and Putin confirms that such destruction will be significantly greater. Trump fears nuclear war, and Putin emphasizes that deploying the Oreshnik system could lead to consequences comparable to those of using nuclear weapons, all while Russia ostensibly adheres to its international obligations.

The idea is relatively straightforward: to convince the team of the new American president that ending the war in Ukraine aligns with U.S. interests, and Trump is correct in this regard. However, the terms for ending this war depend precisely on how the new American president negotiates with Russia's president. It would be better for Trump not to impose any conditions on the Kremlin but to agree to the proposals that Vladimir Putin puts forth for ending the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

These terms, however, are already well known—not from recent statements by the Russian leader or other officials, but from Russia's proposals at the end of 2021. At that time, Putin made the final decision to invade Ukraine and replace its government. The proposals included a demand that NATO declare it would not expand to include former Soviet republics, specifically mentioning Ukraine and Georgia, according to Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Additionally, there was a call to withdraw the latest weapons from NATO member countries located in territories that joined the alliance after 1997—essentially, the former Warsaw Pact nations and the former Republic of Yugoslavia.

Thus, Putin appears to offer the American leadership a choice between the threat of a new nuclear conflict—or one resembling a nuclear conflict in Europe—and the cessation of the war between Russia and Ukraine. Between the threat of total devastation of Ukrainian territories and the possibility of ending the war on Russian terms, where the occupied Ukrainian territories would come under full Russian control, and the remaining territory under Kyiv's control would become a vassal state entirely subordinated to Russia. Essentially, it would become an expanded version of Belarus.

This is the choice Putin seeks to present to Donald Trump. This is the end of the war that Putin would like to showcase to his compatriots as a victory. This is the end of the war that would allow Russia to position itself as the geopolitical hegemon of the European continent and facilitate victories for far-right and far-left political forces in European countries aligned with the Kremlin. Not only aligned with the Kremlin, but also with figures like Donald Trump and others within the ultra-conservative circle of the U.S. Republican Party, including Elon Musk. 

Some of these European political forces strangely combine their willingness to negotiate with Russia's leadership with overt sympathies for Trump and other prominent figures in this circle. Perhaps this is not strange at all. Perhaps these European politicians see common values that they believe must be defended, even at the cost of abandoning support for Ukraine and accepting the idea that former Soviet republics are a natural sphere of influence for Russia. Such ideas were often expressed even before the so-called major Russian attack on Ukraine.

I have no doubt that if this large-scale attack halts, proponents of this view of Europe's future will again openly express their sympathies—not necessarily for Putin, but for the chauvinistic ideas Russia continues to promote on the continent.

However, for Putin to realize these delusions and implement his plans, he must first and foremost intimidate Donald Trump. To intimidate Trump, the Russian president needs to turn Ukraine into a testing ground for his misanthropic experiments.

Of course, this process of intimidating Trump involves simultaneously intimidating Ukraine through constant threats of vengeance against a neighboring country, as if Ukraine had attacked Russia. In reality, it was this criminal state that attacked Ukraine back in 2014 and escalated the aggression in 2022, believing it could completely absorb Ukrainian territories. Thus, this is not revenge but a calculated political strategy by a former officer of the KGB or FSB of the Russian Federation.

Source

About the author. Vitaly Portnikov, journalist, winner of the Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine.

The editors don't always share the opinions expressed by the blog authors.