Early signs suggest that Moscow won’t be turning the other cheek to Biden’s about-face. Curiously, few in Russian society, or anywhere else, know what that means in practice.
Saber-rattling
In the first official comments from Moscow on Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the use of long-range weapons would signify “a qualitatively new level of tension and a qualitatively new situation in terms of U.S. involvement in the conflict.”
He referred to the comments made by Putin in September, describing them, inaccurately, as “very clear and unambiguous.”
In a remark to Russian newspaper RBC, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova similarly deferred to Putin’s earlier position, saying that “the president has spoken on the matter.”
As often happens when the Kremlin buys time while it mulls its best response, Russian propagandists and mid-ranking officials were happy to fill the information vacuum with incendiary language and saber-rattling.
“The response could be anything. Anything,” Dmitry Kiselyov, the anchor of Russia’s flagship “Vesty Nedely” news show on state TV, menaced on Sunday evening. “There’s a reason why we amended our nuclear doctrine,” he continued, referring to recent changes that would justify a nuclear response by Russia even if it is struck by conventional weapons.