In the Western Press, the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, is often referred to as “the most evil man in the world.” Dictator, murderer, madman, monster, megalomaniac, and warmonger are some of his other honorary epithets. He is often described as “unhinged” and “unstable,” and the war in Ukraine is frequently explained as Putin’s individual whim.
One may or may not agree with such titles. However, the fact remains that in international realpolitik, such name-calling has a long history. Earlier, Saddam Hussein was called a “madman,” and Gaddafi was labeled as “insane.”
This name-calling does serve a purpose. It helps frame the battle and conflict as “good” vs “evil.” We’re the good guys, and those on the other side are lunatics and bad guys. While there is nothing new in this strategy, the intensity with which Putin is bad-mouthed in the Western press is unprecedented even by the West’s own standards.
In such a fog of war, it would be, indeed, courageous to advance a counter-narrative and describe Putin not as “unhinged” and “unstable,” but as someone who has shown tremendous restraint throughout this three-year-long war.
Also, it is not my case that Putin is not a dictator or aggressor. Putin has, indeed, destroyed Russia’s nascent democracy and silenced his critics in the most ruthless manner. He has indeed invaded a sovereign country and forcibly tried to change its border.
However, since the Ukraine war started in February 2022, Putin has shown great restraint to ensure that the conflict does not spill over and become a wider regional war. He has shown this restraint despite what many would say were repeated provocations from the other side.
However, to build this counternarrative, it is necessary to list many of the Russian red lines that have been crossed in this war without prompting an equal response from Moscow.
Russian Red Lines That Have Been Crossed
In many ways, the three-year war in Ukraine can also be termed as a series of violations of Russian red lines. So much so that an emboldened Zelenskyy has even said that all “Russian red lines are a bluff.”
American Boots On The Ground
This was one of the first red lines crossed. While launching his ‘Special Military Operation’ in Ukraine in February 2022, Putin explicitly warned against outside interference.
“No matter who tries to stand in our way or create threats for our country and our people, they must know that Russia will respond immediately. And the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history.”
This was viewed as a thinly veiled nuclear threat.
However, notwithstanding the often-repeated claim by the US that they were not fighting Russia but merely helping Ukraine defend itself and would never put American boots on the ground, in reality, this red line was crossed as soon as the war started.
A recent investigative piece in The New York Times details how, within the first few weeks of the Russian offensive in February 2022, US boots were put on the ground in Ukraine.
“Easing a prohibition against American boots on Ukrainian ground, Wiesbaden (US military base in Germany) was allowed to put about a dozen military advisers in Kyiv. To avoid drawing public attention to their presence, the Pentagon initially called them ‘subject matter experts,’” the NYT report says.
However, this team of a dozen military advisers was soon expanded to “three dozen.” Later, these military advisers were even allowed to “travel to Ukrainian command posts closer to the fighting.”
As the war expanded in the coming months, the number of these so-called ‘subject-matter experts’ kept on increasing.
Expanding The War To Crimea And Beyond:
Initially, the US was careful to try to limit the war to Eastern Ukraine. However, soon enough, this caution was also thrown out of the window, and Ukraine was allowed to expand the frontiers of the war to even include Crimea (a territory Russia occupied in 2014) and the Black Sea waters just beyond the territorial waters of Russian-annexed Crimea.
“In 2022, the U.S. Navy was authorized to share targeting information for Ukrainian drone strikes on warships just beyond the territorial waters of Russian-annexed Crimea. The C.I.A. was allowed to support Ukrainian operations within Crimean waters; that fall, the spy agency covertly helped Ukrainian drones strike Russian warships in the port of Sevastopol,” the NYT report says.
Long-Range Strikes In Crimea
As the war progressed, the restrictions on Ukraine’s use of long-range strikes were gradually relaxed.
“In January 2024, U.S. and Ukrainian military officers in Wiesbaden jointly planned a campaign — using coalition-supplied long-range missiles, along with Ukrainian drones — to attack about 100 Russian military targets across Crimea. The campaign, named Operation Lunar Hail, largely succeeded in forcing the Russians to pull equipment, facilities, and forces in Crimea back to the Russian mainland.”
Strikes Within Russia
From Russia’s perspective, this was perhaps one of the most serious red lines crossed in the war – the Russian border. Russia has repeatedly warned against supplying Ukraine with long-range weapons and allowing Kyiv to strike within Russian territory.
In September 2024, Putin delivered a stern warning: “Don’t allow Ukraine to use your long-range missiles to strike Russian territory.”
Moscow, he said, would view that as the “direct participation” of NATO countries in the war in Ukraine.
“It would substantially change the very essence, the nature of the conflict. This will mean that NATO countries, the USA and European states, are fighting with Russia.”
Putin argued that for missile launches into Russia, Ukraine would require data from Western satellites and that only servicemen from NATO member states would be able to “input flight missions into these missile systems”.
He was not wrong. As the latest NYT report reveals, in spring 2024, the CIA ditched its longstanding policy of not providing coordinates to Ukraine for strikes inside Russia.
Taking one step further, former US President Biden, during his last days in office, allowed Ukraine to strike inside internationally recognized Russian territory using US-supplied long-range weapons. Soon, the UK and France also followed suit and allowed Kyiv to strike inside Russia using their long-range missiles like Storm Shadows.
How far the US has come in its involvement in the war could be gauged from the fact that initially, when the US was providing coordinates for strikes to Ukrainian forces to target Russian forces on Ukrainian territory, they were careful enough not to call them “targets” but “places of interest.”
From there, to allowing Ukraine to strike Russia in its own territory with Western-supplied missiles and Western-supplied intelligence and coordinates was a sea-change.
Attacking Russian Assets In International Territory
In September 2022, the Nord Stream gas pipeline, carrying natural gas from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea, was damaged in an explosion. Initially, Russia was blamed. Later, Western media (Wall Street Journal and The New York Times) claimed that the gas pipeline was blown up by a small Ukrainian sabotage team in an operation that Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself approved.
Ukraine Takes The War With Russia To Africa
In July last year, rebels in Mali attacked a convoy led by the Malian government troops and supported by Russia’s Africa Corps (formerly Wagner Group). The rebels had information on the precise location of government and Russian forces and advanced drones.
In the attack, 84 Wagner Group fighters and 47 Mali government troops were killed. This was the biggest single-day loss for the Wagner Group in almost a decade of its involvement in Africa.
Just two days later, Andriy Yusov, spokesman for Kyiv’s military intelligence service (GUR), said that ethnic Tuareg rebels in Mali had “received necessary information, and not just information, which enabled a successful military operation against Russian war criminals”.
Subsequent reports suggested that Ukrainian special forces had trained the separatists in the use of attack drones.
Additionally, in the country of Sudan, there are also possible indications that Ukrainian special forces may have conducted a drone strike on a Wagner-backed militia currently fighting against the country’s military regime.
While Russia condemned the attack on Nord Stream and the African Corps troops through diplomatic channels, it did not take any steps in response. These attacks and Russia’s lack of response clearly show that while Ukraine was desperately trying to internationalize the conflict and turn it into a wider conflict spanning each other’s assets in third countries, Russia did its best to keep the conflict limited to Ukraine.
From Blankets To Javelins, F-16s To ATACMS
In some ways, the Ukraine war started way back in 2014 when Russia occupied the Crimean peninsula. Following the Crimean invasion, US President Obama gave Ukraine blankets and night-vision goggles. Obama resisted the desperate Ukrainian demands to supply them with advanced weapons as he feared this could trigger a direct conflict between NATO and Russia.
“Blankets, night vision goggles are also important, but one cannot win the war with blankets. Even more importantly, we cannot keep the peace with a blanket,” Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said at the time.
President Trump was more forthcoming during his first term and provided Kyiv with Javelin anti-tank missiles.
Compared to these early days of caution, the US has come a long way. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, the US provided Kyiv with more Javelins, Stinger missiles, armored vehicles, AT-4 anti-armor systems, Mi-17 helicopters, and HMMWVs.
However, on March 9, 2022, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said the United States will not send fighter jets to Ukraine.
“We believe the provision of additional fighter aircraft provides little increased capabilities at high risk,” Kirby said.
In the coming days, the US tolerance for affording ‘risk’ with Russia would gradually expand multifold.
In June 2022, the US announced High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and ammunition for Ukraine. In November, the NASAMs were supplied.
In April 2023, Ukraine received the first American-made Patriot missiles. The first F-16s reached Ukraine only by August 2024. And it was only in November 2024 that Biden, during his last days in office, allowed Ukraine to use its long-range weapons to strike inside Russian territory.
Putin’s Restraint
Earlier in June 2024, when Putin was asked about Russia’s response if Ukraine attacked Russian territory with Western-supplied missiles, Putin has replied: “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?”
Essentially, Putin hinted that if the West crosses this red line, then in response, Moscow could also supply rogue elements (Hezbollah, Houthis, and perhaps North Korea) with dangerous and long-range weapons that could hit Western targets.
However, despite the West not heeding his warning, at least for now, Russia has not supplied any rogue elements with new weapon systems.
Ukraine attacked the Nord Stream pipeline and attacked Russia’s African Corps Troops in Mali and Sudan. However, despite these attacks, Russia has not attacked Ukrainian assets in third countries. This shows that while Ukraine tried to widen the scope of the conflict, Russia actually showed restraint and tried to contain the conflict to Ukraine only.
Russia has the world’s largest nuclear stockpile. According to the Federation of American Scientists, Russia has an estimated 5,580 warheads. However, despite nuclear saber-rattling and changing its nuclear doctrine, Russia has not taken any provocative steps.
Russia has a stockpile of over 300 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), but so far, it has resisted the urge to use them.
In fact, till now, despite multiple red lines being crossed from the West, Russia has arguably taken only two provocative steps. One, the use of the new intermediate-range ballistic missile, Oreshnik, which means hazel tree in Russian, in November 2024. This came right after Ukraine was allowed by the Biden administration to use long-range weapons inside Russian territory.
However, multiple media reports quoted Ukrainian defense officials saying the Oreshnik missile was equipped with “dummy” warheads lacking explosives.
“This demonstrates that it was a propaganda and political action rather than a military one. There was neither a nuclear charge nor explosives inside. That’s why the damage is so insignificant,” German media outlet Bild Claimed.
Clearly, Russia used the missile not to inflict damage but to send a message to the West that Moscow has the technological and military means to make good on its threats and respond to repeated Western provocations.
Putin has also been blamed for expanding the conflict by including the North Korean soldiers in the Ukraine war. According to Western sources, 10,000 to 13,000 North Korean troops are fighting on Russia’s side. However, here also, it must be noted that North Korean soldiers are only fighting in the Kursk oblast, which is Russian territory, and not on Ukrainian territory.
Also, as we know, NATO military advisers have been present in Ukraine almost since the beginning of the war. Not just that, in 2022, Ukraine established the International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine (ILDU), a force of international fighters eager to fight Russia. As per Ukrainian officials, over 20,000 people from 50 countries had joined this legion and are fighting on its behalf.
Russia claims that this legion has some 13,000 foreigners, out of which nearly 6,000 have been killed.
Whether one believes Russian or Ukrainian sources, one thing that is clear is that on both sides, 10,000 to 20,000 foreign troops are fighting. However, in Russia’s case, they came from only one country, North Korea, through a government-to-government treaty. On the Ukrainian side, fighters from over 50 countries are fighting, though mostly in individual capacity. However, the same cannot be said about NATO military advisers in Ukraine.
None of this argues that a free pass should be given to Russia. Moscow is fighting a brutal war of aggression in Ukraine. However, since the war started, Russia has tried to ensure that the war is contained to Ukraine and does not turn into a wider regional or international conflict. Even after multiple red lines were crossed and many provocations from the West and NATO, Moscow tried to avoid a direct confrontation with NATO.
One can argue that this is because, at this stage, Russia can hardly afford a wider conflict involving the direct participation of NATO countries. Still, it cannot be denied that despite having the means and technological heft, Moscow has tried to keep this war contained to a limited geography and has fought it within the acceptable limits of a conventional war.
- Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from The University of Sheffield, UK.
- He can be reached at ahlawat.sumit85 (at) gmail.com
