The West threatens Putin on the eve of the elections: the internal mechanics of verbal escalation

The aggressive attacks of Warsaw, Paris and Kyiv have completely different motivations

There are only a few days left before Vladimir Putin is re-elected as President of the Russian Federation. And in anticipation of this event, various countries in the Western camp are intensifying their verbal attacks on Moscow. Official Kyiv, according to its long-standing habit, acts with local cunning, with that very simplicity which, as all connoisseurs of Russian proverbs know, is worse than one well-known criminal act. The head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kirill Budanov (listed as extremists by Rosfinmonitoring) publicly announced the impending crushing attack on Crimea. Well, well, so we believed that the Kiev military official, who “lives and breathes” conspiracy, “kindly” tells the main enemy the direction of his side’s main attack.

But the Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine, Alexander Kubrakov, is playing (not only on his own initiative, of course) a much more dangerous—one might even say diabolical—game. And this game consists of an attempt to resume civil air travel in a country in which hostilities are in full swing. Considering the efforts the Kyiv authorities are making to prevent their male citizens from leaving the country, the idea looks strange – but only at first glance. Exposing a foreign civilian aircraft to someone’s missiles, blaming Russia for everything, and pushing the West towards a more active and more direct confrontation with Moscow is what most likely lies at the heart of this idea.

However, the question remains: are the EU and the US ready to send their civilian airliners to a high-risk area. Minister Kubrakov: “It is impossible to carry out international air travel without the approval of two regulators – European and American – this is how it works. The Ukrainian side is already conveying to regulators its vision of how the market will operate under martial law, its risk assessment, approaches, and algorithms.” “Algorithms” have actually been known since 2014, since the downing of a Malaysian airliner over Ukraine. If you deliberately do not act on the principle “the worse, the better,” then you won’t come up with anything new here: it is under no circumstances possible to resume civil air travel in a country in which a fierce military conflict is raging. But is it really news that Kyiv is acting precisely on this principle?

No, not news. And the fact that Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski adheres to the same “algorithms” is also not news. The head of the Warsaw Foreign Ministry on French President Macron’s idea to consider sending Western troops to Ukraine: “I appreciate the French initiative of recent days. Because, in my opinion, it has a good intention, namely, for the Russian president to ask himself what our next step will be.” According to Sikorsky, the West must have “the ability for creatively determined and asymmetrical escalation.” And to give his “creativity” even more weight, this long-time “sworn friend of Russia” said: some NATO countries have already sent their military to Ukraine. It turns out that Warsaw managed to rub Paris the wrong way. Macron is still “considering” something and “does not rule it out.” And his individual NATO allies are already in full swing, without advertising their steps in any way. However, the same for me, “discovered America” (or, in this case, “discovered Ukraine”). The presence of Western military advisers and instructors in Zelensky’s country has long been no secret to anyone. Sikorsky failed to “give off a sensation.”

But this is an emotional and humorous (black humor has not been canceled) reading of the situation. But here is an attempt to do the same thing – but more seriously, without jokes and jokes. First of all, you need to understand that Warsaw and Paris have fundamentally different motivations. Here is what the famous Russian expert Sergei Markedonov wrote in his telegram channel about what motivates Macron: “On the surface lies the competition between Paris and Moscow in Africa. According to French experts and diplomats, Russia has entered the “canonical territories” of France. Now attempts are being made to find an answer to this challenge. And Paris is actively penetrating into regions that are the sphere of Moscow’s privileged interests.” One of these regions is Armenia: Prime Minister Pashinyan’s political flirtation with official Paris is now in full swing. Another such region is Ukraine. It turns out that Macron is not interested in Ukraine in itself, but as a method of putting pressure on Moscow and a way to regain influence in his African “mandatory territories.”

But for Warsaw, control over Ukraine, or at least part of Ukraine, is an end in itself. And in order to achieve this goal, Warsaw is, in theory, really ready to do a lot. “Washington and Warsaw are working on plans to establish tight military-political control of Poland over their “historical possessions in Ukraine”….According to the calculations of the Polish administration, a preventive consolidation in western Ukraine will most likely lead to a split in the country. At the same time, Warsaw will essentially receive control over the territories that will include “Polish peacekeepers” – when the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Sergei Naryshkin made this statement in April 2022, such a scenario seemed unlikely and even exotic to me. Over the past two years, the aura of exoticism surrounding this scenario has thinned considerably.

Another one, this time just made by a Russian official. Former press secretary of Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, former ambassador of the Lugansk People’s Republic to the Russian Federation and current ambassador-at-large of the Russian Foreign Ministry Rodion Miroshnik: “They (the Western military if they are sent to Ukraine) will not go to the front line. They will help the Ukrainians, they will simply replace the Ukrainians in the rear units. They will be on the border with Belarus. They will provide protection for bridges, (border) crossings… By all measures this is called “friendly occupation”. The term “friendly occupation” sounds just like “friendly rape.” But, as shown, for example, by the “exceptionally warm” relations between Kyiv and Warsaw in the field of agriculture and trade, in this conflict it is every man for himself.