Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to repackage long-standing,!!!

WAR-REPORT:- Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to repackage long-standing, tired threats about direct confrontation with the West by claiming that Russia will provide long-range strike capabilities to unspecified actors for strikes against the West. Putin’s threat aims to influence Western decision-making about Ukraine’s ability to strike military targets within Russia using Western-provided weapons but notably does not threaten escalation in Ukraine or through direct confrontation, suggesting that the Kremlin may be adjusting to select Western perceptions about the credibility of such Russian threats.

Putin stated during a meeting with the heads of foreign press organizations on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on June 5 that Russia could begin supplying long-range weapons to unspecified adversaries of the West as a “symmetrical response” to the lifting of some Western restrictions on Ukraine’s use of Western-provided weapons to strike military targets within Russia. Putin rhetorically asked why Russia should not have the right to supply weapons of a similar class (compared to those the West has allowed Ukraine to use for strikes on Russian territory) to unspecified actors that will conduct strikes on Western “sensitive targets.”

Kremlin actors routinely threaten to directly strike Western targets in an effort to use Western fears of escalation with Russia to encourage the West to self-deter its support for Ukraine, and Putin’s June 5 threat is not a notable inflection in this regard.

Putin may assess that select Western actors will be more concerned about Russia providing long-range strike capabilities to actors willing to attack the West than the Kremlin’s tired rhetoric about direct confrontation between the West and Russia. Russia is very unlikely to directly provide scarce high-end long-range strike capabilities to other actors, however, since it uses many of these systems for large-scale strikes against Ukraine. It is also unclear what systems Putin means by weapons of a “similar class.”

The United Kingdom lifted restrictions on Ukraine’s ability to use Storm Shadow cruise missiles with a range of over 250 kilometers for strikes against military targets within Russia, which is the Western system with the longest range that Ukrainian forces are currently permitted to use for such strikes.

The kinds of long-range strike systems Russia could ostensibly give other actors would be limited if Putin’s “proportional” threat is credible. Russia’s likely unwillingness to provide long-range systems does not preclude Russian efforts to help the West’s adversaries acquire long-range strike capabilities, however. Russia is reportedly providing North Korea with ballistic missile technology in return for North Korea’s provision of artillery munition to Russia, for example.

Putin and the Kremlin have threatened escalation at every critical juncture in Western debates about support for Ukraine, and this latest threat aims to constrain the easing of remaining Western restrictions on Ukraine’s ability to strike military targets within Russia using Western weapons.

Lifting remaining restrictions on Ukraine’s use of Western weapons can allow Ukrainian forces to substantially degrade Russian operations by eliminating Russia’s ability to use Russian territory as a sanctuary space to optimize its rear areas to support Russia’s campaign to destroy Ukrainian statehood.