'The Kremlin Is In A Sticky Situation'

Putin is not ready for war with NATO.

Last week, Russia launched a new ballistic missile "Oreshnik" against the Dnipro.

Did Putin manage to scare the West with this? Charter97.org spoke with Ukrainian political scientist, professor at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv Petro Oleshchuk:

— It is obvious what Putin is trying to achieve. For a long time, he called allowing Ukraine to carry out long-range missile strikes on Russian territory "red lines", that this would mean NATO entering the war, and there would be some significant response from the Russian Federation to this.

After permission was granted to Ukraine, the Kremlin found itself in a very sticky situation, because Putin promised some kind of terrible response, almost immediately starting a war with NATO, but it turns out that he is not ready for this.

They decided to respond in a hybrid way - with a missile strike that is designed to deliver a nuclear strike, but without a nuclear strike, and not on NATO territory, but on Ukraine.

To show, like, "look, we have this, we can deliver a corresponding strike on you." But, as studies show, the effectiveness of such a missile strike turned out to be quite low. It cannot be said that this missile, despite its high cost, causes more serious damage than the well-known Iskander.

This is Putin's PR campaign, like, "look, this is serious, you are to immediately accept my terms, make peace with me, because I am so dangerous and I have another dangerous missile."

— Will there be further escalation steps on both sides?

— The answer has already been received. Yesterday, Ukraine launched a drone strike on the Kaluga Oil Refinery and a military plant, and ATACMS missiles attacked the Kursk airfield, which was used as a base for Russian troops.

The rules of the game have been accepted and we will have to react somehow. I suspect that Russia will return to its usual practice of massive shelling of Ukraine and its energy sector.

It is unlikely that they will be able to come up with and use anything new in this situation. They will most likely soon forget about "Oreshnik". It did not show any special influence or effect, and it is unlikely that it will be able to show it.

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