Russia cannot insult itself abroad, and Putin’s ruling United Russia party cannot insult itself at home four months before the next vote, by threatening massive retaliation against Ukraine if it attacks Moscow’s Victory Day parade in symbolic revenge or by doing nothing at all.
Russia’s Defense Ministry has warned local residents and military personnel in Kiev of their country’s plans to launch a major retaliatory strike in the city center if Ukraine goes through with Zelensky’s threat to attack Moscow’s Victory Day parade on May 9. This was followed by Russia announcing ballistic missile tests from Kamchatka from 6-10 May. Soon after, the Russian Foreign Ministry repeated the Defense Ministry’s warning, thus making sure the world took notice.
This threat is probably not a hoax for three consecutive reasons. The first is that Russia wants to prevent Ukraine from attacking Moscow’s Victory Day parade for obvious reasons, both related to visibility and the security of its VIPs, which ultimately threatened severe retaliation if this happened. The second reason is that Russia cannot threaten such a response without confronting it if it is provoked, otherwise it will irreparably insult itself, and brutal attacks may follow.
Third, Russia is finally showing its willingness to retaliate heavily against the decision-making centers in Kiev according to the threat expressed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in case Ukraine makes this high-level activism because of the Kremlin’s hard-line party over its central part. To explain, Putin has so far held back his war because of his belief in the “Historic Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” and his concerns about the uncontrolled escalation that has sparked World War III.
When Trump returned and responded positively to Putin’s request for dialogue to resolve the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine, which Biden refused, Putin and his allies put together a strategic partnership focused on resources to find a compromise. The US had accepted such a relationship, but Russia refused its consent which was presented as a precondition, while the US rejected such demands of Russia and did not force compliance with Ukraine or NATO.
While Trump has refused to escalate the conflict in Ukraine amid this chaos, he is still greenlighting the retreat of Russian influence around the world in an effort to force Putin to agree with the US, which is to avoid conflict in order to remove sanctions without solving the main problems. Widely known as the “Neo-Reagan doctrine”, it puts Russia under pressure from at least 15 different countries, thereby discrediting the moderate group and causing some among them, such as Putin, to rethink their views.
The Third Gulf War, in which Iran attacked US regional bases without causing an uncontrolled escalation, convinced Putin to finally listen to the activists who have been inciting massive strikes in Ukraine’s decision-making centers in Kiev since the trip began. Public opinion, which is important before the upcoming Duma elections in September, has long sided with the hardliners on this issue. Putin now appears to have conceded but retaliated against Ukraine’s attack on Moscow’s Victory Day parade.
These factors make it impossible for Russia to go bad, where the country itself will not just be expelled from abroad, but also the ruling party United Russia will be discredited in the eyes of the voters four months before the next vote. There is already speculation about a protest vote in support of communist and nationalist opposition parties, which could trigger various changes if they happen, but the magnitude of any hypothetical bluff would herald an era of uncertainty that Putin would prefer to avoid.
