What’s more, over the last two years, Russian officials and the state media here have on many occasions accused the West of “fighting Russia” or launching “a war” on Russia. Even though it was Russia that invaded Ukraine.
But from the tone of President Putin’s latest remarks, it’s clear he considers that the targeting of internationally recognised Russian territory with Western missile systems would take the conflict to a new level.
What he didn’t make clear yesterday is how Moscow would respond.
“We will take corresponding decisions based on the threats to us that will be created,” Vladimir Putin said.
On Friday, Russia withdrew the accreditation of six British diplomats, accusing them of “subversive activities” and threatening Russia’s security.
But Putin’s potential response is much broader. He offered some clues back in June.
At a meeting with the heads of international news agencies, he was asked: how would Russia react if Ukraine was given the opportunity to hit targets on Russian territory with weapons supplied by Europe?
“First, we will, of course, improve our air defence systems. We will be destroying their missiles,” President Putin replied.
“Second, we believe that if someone is thinking it is possible to supply such weapons to a war zone to strike our territory and create problems for us, why can’t we supply our weapons of the same class to those regions around the world where they will target sensitive facilities of the countries that are doing this to Russia?”
In other words, arming Western adversaries to strike Western targets abroad is something that Moscow has been considering.
Earlier this month, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, announced that Russia was set to revise its nuclear doctrine: the document that lays out under what circumstances Moscow may consider using nuclear weapons.
He suggested that the decision to revise the doctrine was “connected with the escalation course of [Russia’s] Western adversaries”.
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