Putin’s big bluff is beating the West

Key elements of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategy toward the West are once again on display. This time, the setting is Transnistria, a breakaway state of Moldova located between non-NATO Moldova to the west and Ukraine to the east.

Reflecting the Donetsk People’s Republic request Parliamentary Assembly of Transnistria, which will become part of the Russian Federation in May 2014 have Asked The Kremlin is trying to “recreate and provide protection in a miniature version of the highly flammable scenario unfolding in the areas of eastern Ukraine currently occupied by Moscow.”

What is noteworthy is the timing. President Putin is scheduled to give the following speech today: national situation Joint address to both houses of Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate Federal Council. Putin is likely to use this speech to score a long-awaited victory over Ukraine’s tactical withdrawal from Avdiivka ahead of Russia’s March 15 presidential election.

President Putin may be planning to use this opportunity to lay the groundwork for further military intervention in the name of protecting Russian-speaking peoples. This is exactly what he did in Donbass in 2014. Intervening in Moldova would create a new front for Ukraine to manage, and could also prompt Ukraine to intervene in Moldova. Romanian reaction.

Just as President Putin, in coordination with Tehran, used Hamas’s October 7 attack as cover for a bloody counterattack in eastern Ukraine, the Russian government is using Transnistria as another planned NATO member. It may be used as a diversion.

Asymmetric distraction is an increasingly important part of President Putin’s strategy. We have already seen this situation elsewhere, including attacks by Iranian-backed militias on US forces in Iraq and Syria, and ongoing attacks by Houthi rebels. underwater cable Naval and maritime transport, often transporting equipment for the Russian military.

Transnistria would offer the same, participating in both Putin’s long-term and short-term wars with the West.

We warned on these pages in May 2022 that Putin was likely heading to Moldova in retaliation for Finland and Sweden ultimately seeking membership in NATO. Now, almost two years later, Helsinki has joined NATO and Stockholm has been given the green light to join.

In the short term, Transnistria will serve as a distraction. In the long term, Putin’s maneuver to get Transnistria’s Duma Congress to make this demand could lead to a siege of Ukraine and ultimately additional military pressure on Ukraine’s important Black Sea port city of Odesa. This will help Moscow’s goal of increasing the odds.

Putin’s decision-making process does not proceed gradually, but by leaps and bounds. His end-states are always designed to set the next stage in his overall plan, which is essentially to regain as much of the former Soviet territory as possible.

A temporary military setback will not deter Putin. They are, Second Chechen War and the subsequent rebellion, and his We’re screwed It occupied Kiev at the beginning of the war against Ukraine.he wasn’t ashamed of himself black sea fleet His Beriev A-50 reconnaissance plane also gradually sank. shoot downEven when Evgeny Prigozhin launched an uprising against him.

President Putin is extremely bold in sending marginalized Russians to death in the meat grinder of Avdiivka and Bakhmut, rather than precious sons and daughters of elite families in Moscow or St. Petersburg. This is why even though he has a losing hand, he is slowly starting to gain territory.

Blunting the West in order to pit certain NATO members against each other is a key element of Putin’s strategy. The nuclear bluff is the poker his blind that brings everything together.

Moscow’s state media has long used Russia’s nuclear arsenal as a Russian-style teddy bear state form to appease the public during the darkest hours of President Vladimir Putin’s special military operation. There are many examples, such as Olga Skabeyeva, known as “Putin’s doll”. declare He claimed the Kremlin should have “nuked” Queen Elizabeth’s state funeral, given that all heads of state were present, including US President Joe Biden.

Recently, the Kremlin reportedly nuclear weapons in space US military and commercial satellites and to threaten Dmitry Medvedev threaten a nuclear attack America and Europe were forced to return to their borders in 1991 after Russia lost the war in Ukraine.

However, President Putin’s bluff strategy goes far beyond nuclear weapons. This has proven equally effective in creating divisions among NATO heads of state and causing many Western nations to cower in the face of the Russian threat.

For example, French President Emmanuel Macron said in Paris on Monday that French troops could be sent to Ukraine. Moscow quickly seized the opportunity, declare “If European NATO members send troops to fight in Ukraine, conflict between Russia and the US-led NATO military alliance will be inevitable.”

USA, UK, Finland, Germany, Spain, Poland rapidly “We distanced ourselves from any suggestion that they might bring in ground troops. Even in Sweden, which is technically not yet a NATO member, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson rejected Mr. Macron’s proposal. I categorically declared Stockholm had “no plans to send ground forces to Ukraine.”

Putin’s bluff quickly turned into an unforced error for NATO. There was no need to rebel. The ambiguity of the unknown has been replaced by the certainty of the known. NATO will not commit military force if Ukraine’s defenses weaken. Send messages to Russia and Ukraine. Brussels should have left Moscow wondering whether NATO really was ultimately considering that path, should the situation ultimately require it.

NATO is currently out of balance, and Russian machinations in Transnistria are likely just another maneuver by President Putin to keep Brussels and Washington in the lurch. Putin has a losing hand, but the West continues to allow him to win with it. The West needs to realize that it has a winning hand in Ukraine and call out Putin’s bluff.

mark toth He writes about national security and foreign policy. Colonel (retired) Jonathan Sweet He served as a military intelligence officer for 30 years.