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What do Putin's threats mean by "lightning response"?

2022-05-01 12:14:41Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX

What do Putin's threats mean by "lightning response"?

If you speak to Latvians these days, most do not rule out a potential Russian attack against their country. Latvia shares with Russia a common border, as well as a common Soviet past, which here is clearly defined as invasion. Since the 1990s, Baltic countries have been independent again. And they want to remain independent. Especially these times. Since Russian aggression against Ukraine many have been alarmed, especially those who did not take the warnings of the American secret services seriously.

To many Putin's words at a high-flying meeting in St. Petersburg sounded alarming. If anyone gets directly involved in the war, Putin threatened, the country will react lightning. "We have all the instruments for this", the Kremlin leader said, and "we will not boast about them. We'll use them if necessary. And I want everybody to know that." The relevant decisions for this have been compiled in the meantime.

What exactly? Independent Russian military expert Yuri Fjodorov does not rule out that Putin has atomic weapons in mind because the threat was directed at countries, which already have atomic weapons, first and foremost the US and Great Britain. In conversation with DW, Fjodorov says that "Putin and his advisers are of the opinion that Ukraine cannot with known weapons. The Kremlin sees atomic weapons as a last resort, i.e. that weapon that defines how the war ends." But in addition to atomic weapons, the Russian president may have also intended the Russian supersonic missile, Zirkon, Fjodorov thinks, a missile attacking targets at sea and in nato's classification is called the SS-N-33. The Zirkon missile flies fast, but not far away, 300-400 km. "Yet Putin prefers this missile, and is very proud."

The military expert doubts Zirkon's effectiveness. "High speed matters for destroying mobile targets at sea, in order not to leave much of the target point." But most targets on earth are stationary, so that's where speed doesn't play a big role. "In addition to this missile, it must be reintroduced into the dense atmosphere to reduce speed, otherwise it burns."

For Andrej Kolesnikov of moscow's former Carnegie Centre (which was due to close at the government's behest in April 2022) Putin's statements are a reaction after the NATO summit at the Us base, Ramstein in Germany. According to Kolesnikov, "everything he says has no strategic character, but tactical, reactive and opportunistic." Putin could change the plans according to the situation, the expert notes. "If it is said, that everything goes according to plan, no one knows, what this plan is like and what purposes it has." Maybe Putin has no fixed goals at all, but he reacts according to the situation. "It depends on what happens in the West and on the front line."

Kolesnikov undoubtedly sees Putin as someone "who has been put to some extent in a rebuke and is reacting more and more brutally." Even his rhetoric has become more brutal. "He has never been ready for dialogue, but in the current situation, negotiations are for him simply with a false character." And Russian expert on policy issues, Abas Galyamav, does not give much importance to Putin's words and calls them pure propaganda.

He compares Putin to a tiger. "Everyone has realized that the tiger is paper. He must show it to all, which is not the case, but he cannot do anything, so only the words remain, which seek to convince others, that the head of the Kremlin is still strong. Galjanov states: "We have the facts; Russia has attacked, has war crimes and a heroic defense of Ukrainians." For Western politicians are these crucial facts for their decisions, according to Galjanov, who does not believe that after Putin's threat, now the west "will walk in a completely different direction." (DW)


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