Why the West must not 'indulge Putin's narrative' of Russia nuclear threat
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The UK’s former Minister of State for the Armed Forces explains why Vladimir Putin is trying to establish a “false narrative” around strikes with long-range US missiles on Russian soil.
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In brief…
- James Heappey tells The News Agents Putin is trying to claim the Russia/Ukraine war is being escalated by its Western backers.
- He says North Korea sending troops to support Ukraine had more of an impact on the conflict than Joe Biden updating permissions to use long-range US missiles.
- He does not believe Russia would follow through with threats of nuclear strikes on Ukraine or NATO targets.
What's the story?
James Heappey, the UK’s former Minister of State for the Armed Forces, has said that the West must not “indulge Putin’s narrative” as the Russia president and his top team threaten nuclear strikes on NATO targets.
Heappey, who served in the defence role for four years under the previous Tory government, told Emily Maitlis, in an interview for The News Agents, that while the nuclear threats are always taken seriously, he does not believe Russia will act.
Vladimir Putin this week updated Russia’s nuclear doctrine to say that if Western-made weaponry is used against it, it could prompt a nuclear response.
The changes were made after Joe Biden approved US-made long-range missiles to be used to strike the Kursk region for the first time since the conflict began.
A day later, Ukraine fired UK-made Storm Shadow missiles into Russia.
"What we have to be careful of is that we don't indulge Putin's narrative, that it's Ukraine's backers – us – that are escalating," Heappey says.
He adds this is not the first time Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, have turned to nuclear rhetoric during the 1,000+ days of the Ukraine war.
Putin trying to establish ‘false narrative’
Medvedev threatened "World War III" after US missiles struck Russian targets, with potential strikes with weapons of mass destruction in Ukraine and on key NATO targets.
"Nobody takes nuclear rhetoric anything other than seriously, but in non nuclear states that can feel really terrifying," Heappey adds.
"To a degree, we're seeing the normal cycle of things, and we're seeing Putin trying to establish the false narrative that this is a gratuitous escalation in western support when, of course, it's not.
"It's a direct response to the way that Putin has escalated the war himself."
This strike with US missiles, fired after the change in political permissions, has seen Ukraine able to strike at Russia's command and control, disrupting its logistics.
Could this impact Russia's key strategy of simply deploying more and more men to the frontline "meat-grinder", with no concern for the number of casualties? Heappey says he prefers not to "subscribe to the idea of any sort of inevitability."
"Russia is taking obscene levels of casualties in order to maintain that kind of weight of effort," he says.
"The Russians are not invincible. There is a point at which they can't do any more.
"It depends on the willingness of North Korea to keep providing more troops."
He says the arrival of troops from North Korea to support Ukraine has made a bigger impact than this week’s use of US long-range missiles.
How might US presidential legacy impact America’s involvement?
Heappey believes Joe Biden may have approved use of the weaponry as he shifts his emphasis from Democrat election to his presidential legacy. Either that, or to give Ukraine an advantage, in case Donald Trump makes sweeping changes in US policy when he takes power in early 2025.
Trump has previously shown more support for Putin, suggested he would cut aid to Ukraine and boasted of ending the war in the region.
“Trump is going to be a second term president. His eyes aren't on re-election. They're on legacy," he says.
"Perhaps Trump will start to think that his legacy is not the immediate gratification of an end to the war in Ukraine, but instead a longer term legacy around setting the conditions for a more stable globe for 20 or 30 years."
This, he adds, may simply be the "wishful thinking of a former defence minister".
When it comes to Russia's next steps, however, he is more certain: Putin's nuclear threat is nothing more than that.
"For all of the sabre-rattling, he's not going to press the nuclear button," he adds.
"Nor is he going to launch a strike on logistics bases in NATO countries."
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What’s The News Agents’ take?
For Emily Maitlis, it's the timing of Biden's change in its missile rules that interests her most.
"I wonder whether we have to be honest about the timing of Biden's actions, which come just a week after the election that the Democrats lost – he knows what's coming next," she says.
"And this is a way of bolstering in whatever form he can, Zelensky to a place where he feels as confident about the next few months as he possibly could."
And that may already have worked in favour of both Biden and Zelensky, according to Lewis Goodall's sources.
"If you talk to people who are either on the ground in Kyiv, or journalists there, they will all say that the psychology of the war now has transformed quite quickly," he says.
The big question now will be over the next steps for both Ukraine and Russia, and whether this shift could be a step towards and end of the conflict.
"The talk now is of – at some point in the next six to nine months – negotiation and some sort of settlement," Lewis adds.
"What Trump has said is that he'll end the war in a day, and the question is would Putin even be willing to have that discussion right now.
He suggests Russia's demands would be far too high for those discussions to come to a conclusion which Ukraine and its Western allies are satisfied with.
"They are paying dearly, and the casualties that the Russians are taking now for every kind of square inch of land is astounding, but it is absolutely clear that they are willing to throw everything and anything at it."
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