Western Europe has become so used to Russia’s petty violence on its territory that even assassinating a British defence-firm CEO might not give president Vladimir Putin the “shock” he needs to reassert authority, amid daily humiliations in the Ukraine war.
US intelligence warnings that he was planning to attack a Baltic state or Poland in the “coming months” to fix his strongman image prompted a snap Nato drill involving some 50 military aircraft in the Baltic Sea on Wednesday (20 August), in order to flex deterrence.
But Putin’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, also renewed threats on Tuesday of a strike on the UK, because it had supplied long-range drones to Kyiv.
Lavrov spoke of “consequences”, but Kremlin propagandists, Vladimir Kornilov and Vladimir Solovyov, went on TV urging Russian people to get behind anything and everything, up to a nuclear strike.
And for Artem Voitovych, from the Olgian Strategies defence consultancy firm in Ukraine, there was another reason why a Russian escalation with Nato was becoming more likely – China.
