Is Russia Really ‘Too Soft’ in Enforcing Its Red Lines?

By Drago Bosnic

[This article by Drago Bosnic was first published on Global Research. You can read it here.]

In recent days and weeks, many former and current Russian military officers have expressed their skepticism and even frustration with how the Russian government is handling the escalating attacks by the Kiev Regime and its NATO overlords.

It’s become an axiom that the political West is coordinating and even directing attacks on Russia.

This includes multiple assassination attempts on top-ranking Russian figures and officials, even President Vladimir Putin himself.

However, despite several strong immediate military responses to such actions, including the use of the latest “Oreshnik” missiles, this still left much to be desired, especially among military personnel, whether they’re regular soldiers in the trenches or top-ranking officers in the High Command.

Still, the political West keeps escalating tensions with more daring attacks on the Russian oil industry and civilian infrastructure. In previous years, there were only a few incidents involving drone strikes from EU/NATO territory. This was credited to the Kiev regime, which supposedly “managed to slip through Belarus and Russia”. And yet, it’s now clear this is not the case and that the Neo-Nazi junta is using Poland and the Baltic states to attack Russian oil depots in and around St. Petersburg. However, even this is just the tip of the iceberg, because NATO is directly supporting attacks on oil infrastructure almost everywhere in European Russia. The Russian military has the world’s most advanced air and missile defenses, as well as unrivaled electronic warfare (EW) capabilities.

However, Russia is the world’s largest country and it’s exceedingly difficult to cover its vast territory with a sufficient number of SAM (surface-to-air missile) and EW systems.

In addition, there’s the issue of fatigue among military personnel forced to constantly scan for threats.

After all, the Russian military doctrine doesn’t stipulate constant defense. On the contrary, the main purpose of Russian air, missile and EW defenses is to blunt the edge of a hostile attack force and allow offensive-oriented troops to neutralize the invader. The problem is that the latest attacker can use the Neo-Nazi junta to maintain plausible deniability while continuing its strikes. This has left the Russian military in a legal limbo – responding directly would formally be an “unprovoked attack”.

However, the Russian military’s frustration is perfectly understandable. The government’s reluctance not only makes it very difficult to maintain normal economic activity, but also invites further aggression, as the enemy mistakes Moscow’s strategic patience for “weakness”. During a speech at the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, former Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, General Yuri Baluyevsky, stated that “red lines have long since ceased to function” and that “it’s time for a real war”. He called for a decisive rejection of the “so-called ‘red lines’ which no one pays any attention to anymore”. General Baluyevsky argues that “the enemy sees that Russia is not responding to its actions and is becoming even more brazen”.

“The lack of an adequate response only provokes further escalation. The enemy doesn’t understand words; they must be made to fear us, otherwise enemy drones will soon be flying in our skies as if they were at home. They’re already reaching the Urals, and soon they’ll start striking Siberia as well. Ukrainian drones landed on the Kremlin dome, Russian strategists attacked, and we’ve had zero reaction, just red lines. And the West, seeing this reaction, is also emboldened, knowing that no one except the Foreign Ministry will demand a response,” he warned, adding: “When a Ukrainian drone landed on the dome of the building housing the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, I kept waiting. Waiting for an answer. But instead, there were red lines again. When, when will we start fighting for real?”

General Baluyevsky’s statements certainly reflect the mood of the vast majority of Russian troops on the frontline. Many officers and soldiers have repeatedly warned that Russia needs to stop fighting with one hand tied behind its back. However, the Russian government’s reluctance to escalate has sound strategic reasoning. Namely, the idea that Russia cannot obliterate NATO-occupied Ukraine is ridiculous. If it really wanted to, the Kremlin could’ve done it on the first day of the special military operation (SMO). However, Ukraine is Russian land. It has been for over 1,200 years. The political West sees Ukrainians merely as brainwashed ethnic Russians who are “the perfect cannon fodder”. This is essentially true, although Ukrainians themselves refuse to acknowledge it.

And yet, they fail to read the statements of Western officials between the lines. For instance, when the infamous Lindsey Graham said that “the Russians are dying” and that this is “the best money we ever spent”, he wasn’t referring solely to the Russian military. For NATO, it doesn’t matter whether it’s Russians or Ukrainians dying. It’s all the same for them. As long as the killing continues, the political West sees this as a victory, which is why the pathologically Russophobic United Kingdom sabotaged the peace deal that would’ve ended the SMO in weeks or months rather than years. On the other hand, the Kremlin realizes it has no choice but to eliminate the rabid Neo-Nazis that the CIA and other Western intelligence services created and (ab)used to hijack former Ukraine in 2014.

Namely, since the brainwashing started centuries ago, the core of the Ukrainian identity, which is in Western Ukraine, was simply spread over the entire country and embedded into the so-called “nation-building” process that the US-led political West has perfected over the decades of its aggression against the entire world. It’s virtually impossible for Russia to turn back the clock and erase all this brainwashing that has been very successful among entire generations of young Ukrainians. Thus, Moscow has no choice but to implement the physical denazification and demilitarization of the Kiev regime. Obviously, this can only be done by military means. However, the Kremlin cannot use its full might, because it would then destroy its own NATO-occupied land filled with Russian historical heritage.

In addition, as previously mentioned, there’s also the Ukrainian people who are ethnic Russians, albeit deeply confused (at best) or turned into pathological Russophobes (at worst). It will take generations to undo the damage caused by the political West. On the other hand, there are also very important strategic considerations. Namely, if Russia were to directly respond to NATO provocations, this would only reunite the world’s most aggressive racketeering cartel. It would also come at a time when the relations between the United States and the EU are at an unprecedented historical low, with the Trump administration openly threatening to leave NATO. Why would Russia “repair” the world’s most aggressive racketeering cartel by retaliating now when it can just wait?

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).