Putin’s red line exists—we just don’t know where it is
This is a commentary piece. The analysis and views expressed are the author’s own.
Published at 15:17
Russia is threatening NATO with nuclear weapons. Directly and without mincing words.
The reason behind it is more important.
The hysteria in the Kremlin highlights Russia’s weakest point—and our most difficult problem to manage.
Russia has long engaged in nuclear saber-rattling.
As early as when Vladimir Putin announced his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he threatened countries that interfered with consequences "never before experienced in their history."
But the latest threat is the most concrete one yet.
Russia has sent a letter to NATO spelling it out very specifically:
If the alliance makes any attempt to isolate Kaliningrad, Russia will respond with "all available means, including nuclear weapons."
Kaliningrad, the Russianden ryska exclave on the Baltic coast, is wedged between Lithuania and Poland and has often been viewed by the West as a risk.
A heavily militarized Russian forward outpost deep within NATO territory.
It houses the home port of the Baltic Fleet, complete with warships and submarines. It hosts Iskander missiles—capable of carrying nuclear warheads—that can reach Stockholm. From Baltiysk, the 120th Naval Infantry Division could reach Gotland by hovercraft in an hour.
The worst-case scenario is that Russia is now rhetorically laying the groundwork for an attack—framed as a move to protect Kaliningrad from Western threats. But I’m not buying that—at least not right now.
If you flip the perspective, the reason for the Russians’ shrill reaction becomes clearer.
Kaliningrad is cut off from the rest of Russia and supplied by trucks and trains traveling through Belarus and the NATO member Lithuania. If NATO were to decide to cut off that traffic, there would be very little Russia could do about it.
NATO’s military forces in the area are also vastly superior to Russia’s. From a purely military standpoint, taking out Russian air defenses and sweeping away the remaining Russian forces at will would be a relatively simple task.
That is the signal the alliance presumably intended to send with its large-scale air exercises near Kaliningrad this autumn—exercises that involved, among other assets, an American aircraft designed for offensive electronic warfare.
The Russians got the message.
The embassy in Belgium specifically complains about "military activity along our western border" and "large-scale exercises involving offensive operations."
The temperature of the conflict between Europe and Russia has shifted from cold to lukewarm, and it continues to rise.
It is not just a matter of escalating Russian hybrid attacks.
From the Russian perspective, European weapons are killing Russian soldiers on Ukrainian battlefields every day; explosions deep inside Russia are made possible by our intelligence; and our money is keeping the Ukrainian state afloat.
Sanctions and crackdowns targeting the Russian "shadow fleet"—not least those led by Sweden—carry the threat of further tightening the screws on Russia’s vital oil exports. The NATO operation *Baltic Sentry*, intended to protect undersea cables in the Baltic Sea, is viewed by the Russians as preparation for a blockade.
This heightened tension is dangerous.
Yet, Russia has the solution to all these problems right there on the table before it—simple, obvious, and, above all, within reach:
Just leave Ukraine.
But the men in the Kremlin do not see it that way.
They will choose a different path.
Geography makes Kaliningrad a unique problem.
The only way for NATO reinforcements from Poland and Germany to reach the Baltic states quickly is via the narrow strip of land between Belarus and Kaliningrad—the so-called Suwalki Gap.
But for that route to be usable in a conflict, Russian defenses in Kaliningrad would first have to be neutralized.
If we take the Russians at their word, one thing is clear:
It is difficult to envision any conflict scenario between NATO and Russia that does not almost immediately and automatically escalate to the nuclear level.
One consolation is that Russian threats have so far proven empty.
Russia has drawn one "red line" after another, each of which has been crossed without any Russian reaction.
A common, flawed, and dangerous conclusion is that Russian red lines therefore do not exist.
On the contrary, the problem is that a red line naturally *does* exist—somewhere.
Russia’s incessant and reckless threats simply mean we do not know where that line lies.
Not until we have already crossed it.
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