Typically cautious Putin isn’t going to risk World War III over foreign drone companies when he wouldn’t risk it after Ukraine attacked his country’s nuclear triad with Western support last summer.
Andrew Korybko
Former Russian President and incumbent Deputy Chair of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev warned on X
that “Russian Defense Ministry’s statement must be taken literally: the
list of European facilities which make drones & other equipment is a
list of potential targets for the Russian armed forces. When strikes
become a reality depends on what comes next. Sleep well, European
partners!” This follows the Defense Ministry publishing the addresses of the foreign companies producing drones for Ukraine.
In
their words, they did this because “The European public should not only
clearly understand the underlying causes of the threats to their safety
but also know the addresses, as well as the location of ‘Ukrainian’ and
‘joint’ companies producing UAVs and their components for Ukraine in
their countries.” The innuendo is that antiwar activists should target
these facilities just like they earlier torched one of Czechia’s Israeli arms partners. It’s also possible that Russia could recruit saboteurs for this purpose too.
Nevertheless,
by publishing these drone companies’ addresses, insinuating that
antiwar activists should target them, and Medvedev ensuring that the
world is aware of all this, they can now ramp up security to foil any
attempted sabotage. This observation in turn lent credence among some to
Medvedev’s related innuendo that they’re actually “a list of potential
targets for the Russian armed forces” instead of sabotage targets. The
insinuation is that they might therefore soon launch attacks against
them.
For as much as many of Russia’s supporters at home and abroad might want that to happen, it would risk World War III, and typically (some believe overly) cautious Putin likely isn’t going to do that over foreign drone companies supplying Ukraine when he wouldn’t do it over “Operation Spider Web”.
To remind readers, that was Ukraine’s Western-backed spree of drone
attacks against Russia’s nuclear triad last summer, which wasn’t the first time it was attacked either but was by far the largest such attack.
Casual members of the Alt-Media Community
might imagine that Medvedev’s position as Deputy Chair of the Security
Council means that he’s speaking on Putin’s behalf but that’s not the
case at all. As was explained here
in late February when comparing top experts Sergey Karaganov’s and
Timofei Bordachev’s polar opposite proposals, respectively to launch
conventional strikes against NATO and strike a deal with the US,
different factions clearly exist within Russia’s policymaking community.
Medvedev
and Karaganov can be considered hawks while Bordachev and Putin for
that matter can be considered moderates. As proven over the past four
years of the special operation,
the hawks’ proposals are always ignored by Putin, so precedent suggest
that Medvedev’s latest insinuation will once again amount to nothing. He
routinely suggests the most hawkish things that never materialize, but
that’s probably because he intends to scare the West, both policymakers
and especially the public.
All in all, the Defense
Ministry’s sharing of foreign drone companies’ addresses is most likely
meant to show their countries that Russian intelligence has penetrated
Ukraine’s supply lines, not warn them of an impending attack by Russia
like Medvedev insinuated. His posts should always be taken with a grain
of salt since Putin never did any of the dramatic things that he
suggested he might. Medvedev is a hawk while Putin is a moderate, so
Putin is therefore naturally disinclined to listen to him.