"Phantom pains": Medvedev threatens Poland with partition

General Rajmund Andrzejczak warned that if Russia dared to attack the Baltic nations, NATO would retaliate with strikes on strategic targets inside Russia itself, including St. Petersburg — Medvedev and Putin's hometown.

Medvedev, predictably irritated, fired back with threats of Poland's partition, recalling that Warsaw was once part of the Russian Empire.

Medvedev’s remarks point to several underlying issues. First, it’s clear Moscow’s imperial ambitions remain alive, rooted not just in Soviet nostalgia but in the long-lost days of the Russian Empire.

Putin, Medvedev, and other Russian leaders are obsessed with restoring what they view as imperial unity. Russia's war on Ukraine is just one expression of this compulsive drive. They believe that only by reclaiming the Soviet Union’s borders can Russia return to the influential role the USSR once played in Europe before losing the Cold War. But it’s not just Ukraine — Russia’s "phantom pains" extend to Poland and Finland, nations that were once part of the Russian Empire but broke free from Bolshevik control in the early 20th century.

It’s a fact that Stalin's Soviet Union, continuing the imperial agenda, attempted to crush Finland and succeeded in slicing off parts of its territory. Poland wasn’t just invaded in collaboration with Hitler's Third Reich — it was also kept in Moscow’s sphere of control after World War II, thanks to the agreements forged by the Allies in the final months of the war.

Let’s not forget, former territories of sovereign Latvia and Estonia, which regained independence after Soviet collapse, but failed to reclaim all the land they held before 1940, as parts still remain under Russian control.

However, what’s most telling about Medvedev's outburst is that Russia understands it can’t realistically restore its imperial delusions — at least not with NATO countries. They simply don’t have the military muscle to pull it off.

Why? Because for the past 2.5 years, the Russian Federation has been trying to capture the full administrative borders of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Let me remind you, that was the goal Vladimir Putin set for his army in February 2022. Meanwhile, the war between Russia and Ukraine has dragged on for 2.5 years, with the Ukrainian military fighting back using Western weapons — though not even the most advanced ones.

Now, imagine what a war between Russia and NATO members would look like. Any credible military expert will tell you that for Russia, this would guarantee military defeat, collapse — and not just of the Russian state, but of the criminal regime that was built in the 90s by ex-Soviet KGB officers. Naturally, Putin, Medvedev, and the rest of the criminal crew running modern Russia, having turned it into a terrorist state, would face immense challenges.

Of course, some might point out that Russia has nuclear threats in its back pocket, and it’s no surprise that Putin — and especially Medvedev — use this tactic whenever their army runs into trouble. But there’s a big difference between bluffing nuclear threats against a non-NATO, non-nuclear country and trying to threaten a bloc where the members themselves have nuclear weapons.

At this point, it’s obvious that Russia’s nuclear threats are losing value — and the Kremlin knows it. Back in 2022, when Putin tried to push nuclear ultimatums on U.S. President Joe Biden, it was during Russia’s prep to occupy Ukraine and erase its sovereignty. Biden simply reminded Putin that no one wins a nuclear war. Sure, it can be started, but if Russia actually launched tactical or strategic nukes on Western cities and strategic targets, the result would be total devastation — not just of St. Petersburg, but other cities too.

And let’s not kid ourselves — the Russian political leadership knows this all too well. That’s why Medvedev gets so irate when responding to statements from the Polish general. The Russian leadership might continue using nuclear blackmail against Ukraine and other countries without nuclear protection, but even then, Moscow still isn’t sure how the civilized world would react if they followed through with a strike.

When it comes to striking NATO members, however, Russia knows exactly what the response would be. The Polish general didn’t say anything groundbreaking. He didn’t reveal any military secrets to Putin or Medvedev. He just reminded them what would happen if Russia ever dared to attack NATO.

This is exactly why Ukraine must secure guarantees from NATO and push to become a full-fledged member. That way, Putin, Medvedev, and their cronies might rage all they want, but they wouldn’t have any real shot at making good on their threats. Because, in reality, they’d know the retaliation for their aggression would be far beyond anything they or their lackeys could imagine.

Source

About the author. Vitaliy Portnykov, journalist, Shevchenko National Prize laureate

The editors do not always share the opinions expressed by the blog authors.