How to see Putin will NEVER attack NATO - because Russia would lose such a war quickly - and Putin isn't even trying to protect Russia from NATO
[by lose quickly, Admiral Radakin means pushed right out of NATO territory, and any missile systems firing at NATO destroyed - NATO wouldn't try to defeat Russia as it is purely defensive]
This is a short summary of my longer blog post with some additional material about why Putin is so very clearly not prepared for any kind of a war with NATO.
Putin is not going to attack NATO.
If you lose against a much weaker country Ukraine and you know that if you retreat from Ukraine the war is over,it is not going to make your situation better to "escalate" and take on a far stronger country in addition to the weaker country that is already defeating you. That simply is nuts.
Using nukes never makes any sense. See:
Bluffing is rational from Putin's point of view.
He gets many advantages from bluffing.
He gains nothing and loses a huge amount if he tries to attack NATO
He ALWAYS has other options, as Ukraine’s only objective is to liberate Ukraine
If Russia withdraws from Ukraine the war ends.
The Russian air defences are so weak that Ukraine now is able to set oil refineries on fire thousands of kilometres away using explosives sent there even in small hobbyists mirolight aircraft. Russia can't shoot these down because it's moved most of its air defences into Ukraine to support its troops fighting there. Ukraine is hitting very high value targets with small propellor driven drones which travel no faster than a fast car, slowly enough for Russians to video them flying over on their mobile phones.
This is not a country that can protect itself against NATO’s jet propelled tomahawk cruise missiles which travel at close to the speed of sound and have a range of 2,400 km. or any of the other numerous assets NATO has such as its remarkably stealthy F-35s, with a radar cross section about the size of a supersonic baked potato
.
When you look for one of these F-35s on radar …
This is what you see: [large potato]
Russian radar operator (imagined): “What is that on the radar? A supersonic potato?”
Billie Flyn, F-35 test pilot on what it would do in Ukraine.
It would go in and kill every surface-to-air missile threat that was out there, and neutralize all the threats on the ground, and achieve air dominance because it would kill all the air-to-air assets also. Remember: we see them, they don’t see us. It’s like playing football, when one team’s invisible, and the other team is not….
Background photos: rightmost potato from: Potato var. Linda HC1 and F-35 at Edwards
For more about NATO’s vast technological advantage over Russia see my:
This shows the range of the US tomahawk
TEXT ON GRAPHIC
Range of the US tomahawk cruise missile with a half ton payload like the ATACMS, travels at nearly 1000 km / hour, range 2,400 km.
Proven ability to get through Russia's S-400 system
With the current state of Russian air defences, teh US could sink the entire Russian Black Sea fleet in a few hours but doesn't give this capability to ukraine.
Details of the missile here: Tomahawk (missile) - Wikipedia
Circle drawn with this free online map circle drawing tool Radius Around a Point on a Map
On the capabilities of cruise missiles to get through the S-400 the evidence is
Russia didn’t stop any of the cruise missiles for the 2017 chemical weapons factory attack in Syria - however it is possible that Russia detected them but didn’t try to intercept them as the main target was the Assad regime’s chemical weapons factory not a Russian target.
the S-400 also has limitations that make it very difficult for it to protect against cruise missiles. Just because of the curvature of the Earth it’s radar can only detect low flying cruise missiles out to a distance of around 40 km because it relies on direct radar detection from a gound radar. So in principle it could protect a high value target from cruise missiles but not a large area.
Details here :Russians Ask: 'Where Were Our Vaunted Air Defense Systems?'
in the Ukraine war Ukraine found it could destroy S-400 systems with its native built Neptune cruise missile, blowing up two of them in three weeks. Russia Had Five S-400 Air-Defense Batteries In Crimea. In Three Weeks, Ukraine Blew Up Two.
several UK stormshadows fly over an S-400 system in Crimea - they spotted them on mobile phone video but couldn’t shoot them down.
Storm Shadow/SCALP flew unimpeded over S-400 positions in Crimea
It is the other way round. Russia seems unable even to stop modified microlight hobbyist aircraft loaded with explosives!
This is about how Ukraine is using modified microlights as long range attack drones. Ukraine appears to deploy modified A-22 ultralights as suicide UAVs
TEXT ON GRAPHIC: Russia's air defences are so degraded that Ukraine is able to fly microlights through them without getting shot down.
Replace pilot and passenger by explosives and remote control, and you have a drone that can evade the Russian air defences and bomb a Russian oil refinery 1000s of kilometres from Ukaraine.
Yet Russia claims FALSELY it can "escalate" and win a war against not just Ukraine but NATO as well. Just bluffs and bulls**t.
Graphic shows the A-22 microlight - a small Ukrainian civilian microlight plane with just enough payload for the pilot plus one passenger. Aeroprakt A-22 Foxbat . Replace pilot and passenger by explosives and remote control and you have a drone that can evade the Russian air defences and head off and bomb a refinery deep in Russia.
Video showing some of the drones attacking oil refineries Ukraine’s AI-enabled drones are trying to disrupt Russia’s energy industry. So far, it’s working | CNN Business Bear in mind that to do this it has flown slowly at about the speed of a fast car over Russia for many hours and not been shot down by air defences or even fighter jets. Here are more of the sorts of things Ukraine uses. Most are propellor driven. H I Sutton - Covert Shores
Using things like this it also hit one of Russia's most advanced 5th generation fighter jet. The remarkable thing is that it wasn't protected by air defences!
QUOTE STARTS
With too few radars and surface-to-air missile batteries to defend every headquarters, factory, oil refinery and air base, the Russians have to make hard choices. Ukrainian drone attacks “force a Russian reassessment of their air-defense resources,” noted Mick Ryan, a retired Australian army general.
It’s possible this reassessment left that Su-57 unprotected just long enough for an explosive drone to strike. And it’s possible additional stealth fighters, as well as other expensive weapons, are also exposed. (A Ukrainian Drone Strike May Have Destroyed A Russian Air Force Su-57 Stealth Fighter)
So Russia is getting more and more defenceless - it's in alot of trouble. Ukraine shouldn't be able to destroy an Su-57 or hit an oil refinery with primitive things like this -but it can because Russia has moved a lot of the Russian air defences into Ukraine.
Putin has also moved almost all his soldiers from the very long frontier with NATO and the Baltic states into Ukraine. He only has police patrols and a very small number of soldiers on the entire border and in Kaliningrad. This is just because all his new soldiers go into Ukraine. He removed the soldiers from the border with NATO in the fall of 2022.
Also, he has no modern tanks left in Moscow. They all go to Ukraine as soon as they are built.
Putin is NOT preparing for a war with NATO - if he was his top priority would be to protect Moscow
Putin can’t find even one modern tank in Moscow for his Red Square Parades in 2023 or 2024.
By Sept 2022, Russia had lost much of its 1st Guard tank army
“Russia’s conventional force to counter NATO is severely weakened” UK Defence Intelligence
Background graphics: screenshot of this tweet from the UK MoD from 2022 Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) on X
Photograph from Red Square parade on May 9, 2023.
. File:2023 Moscow Victory Day Parade 36.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
This is about how they had only one tank in 2024 too.
So, Russia has almost no air defences, no tanks, and no soldiers to defend against NATO.
If he finds he is losing in Ukraine it will make no sense to attack NATO which is far far stronger than Ukraine. It is not an option and he can't even consider it. It is clear he isn't considering any fight with NATO or he'd leave Russia better protected.
The moment Putin withdraws from Ukraine the war is over. Russia is not at risk. While if he attacks NATO it won't use nukes back but can likely take over the Russian air space in hours. However much damage he could cause to NATO in those few hours, he'd be left with a Russia that can't fly any fighter jets or bombers any more by the end of the short war but can only fly planes with the permission of NATO.
The only reason he remains in Ukraine is that when he invaded Ukraine, he had no plan B. He expected to take over all of Ukraine in 2 weeks. He worked out a plan with spies and didn't even tell his army. So he has just been improvising and winging it ever since with no clearly defined goal.
He won't fire nukes at anyone, because Russia is defenceless. And of coures he cares about Russia or he would just be an oligarch.
The job of a president is high risk in Russia. Several Russian presidents have been assassinated.
If he just wanted money , he'd flee Russia, taking his money weith him, like some Oligarchs have done. Also, he shows in many actions that he cares about Russia.
He is very very keen on Faberge eggs, eggs made of gold and precious jewels that belonged to the former tsars of Russia. He cares about Russian buildings. He has his "Putin palace". He sees himself as a new kind of Tsar of Russia. He would lose all that if Russia attacked NATO in a big offensive.
He also cares about Russia as a country in a strange kind of way. Not so much individual people but Russian culture and its people as a whole. He also has family that's close to him including his girlfriend, a former Olympic gymnast.
There is no way Russia can win. At some point Putin will wihdraw from Ukraine and the war is over. Ukraine and the US and UK and other countries are committed to help Ukraine until it wins.
There is no reason why Ukraine wouldn't win, with enough support, since NATO is so much more powerful than Russia. It is really about how quickly it wins, depending on what they are prepared to give to ukraine to help it win.
And that is where Putin's bluffs comein. He will kepe bluffing until the war is over. And after too. He bluffed before the war stated, the only difference is that Westesrn media rarely report the bluffs in English. But people who live close to Russia like Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland are very familiar with nuclear bluffs by Putin, Russian TV hosts, Russian military academics and the ex president Medvedev.
It will end either with Ukraine winning or Ukraine doing a series of counteroffensives that make it clear that it will win, clear enough for Putin to agree on a peace treaty.
Russian soldiers are not sure why they are fighting, they are just obeying orders. Ukrainian soldiers fight to liberate occupied Ukraine and stop as soon as they reach the internationally agreed border with Russia.
So for Ukraine, winning simply means liberating occupied ukraine.
To understand why Zelensky won't accept Putin's "peace offer", imagine an invader has taken over all of Wales. England is fighting them off and they are not able to cross the border of Wales but they fire missiles at England. Meanwhile England has gradually destroyed most of its air defences in Wales and destroyed many fighter jets etc. England expects to be able to liberate large areas of England once the amount of material it destroys reaches some critical point, perhaps this year, or next, or the year after next.
Now the invader says "Let's do a peace treaty. You give me Bristol Liverpool, Birmingham and all the land in between those cities and the welsh border and then I'll stop attacking you."
Previously, this invader said that he would never invade Wales, and signed several treaties also saying that he would not invade, and then did invade so you also don't trust them to keep any peace treaty.
Do you accept the offer to give up all those cities without a fight just so that he can stop attacking you? The answer surely is no, it's not a peace offer, it is just a request to surrender Russia's main objectives in the war without a fight, when it has no way to get them with any amount of fighting. Putin can't be serious it is just propaganda.
It is very very clear he is not being genuine. Russia has never taken a city larger than 100,000 people since 2022. He is asking Ukraine to give up its second largest city, with a peacetime population of nearly 3 million without a fight. He has also demanded Zaporizhzhia (3/4 million), which Russia has no chance of taking, and Kherson city (1/4 million) which the Ukrainians won back in 2022 the only major city apart from Mariupol (1/2 million) that Russia won in the war so far.
It is very obvious that if Ukraine agreed to this deal, he would simply fortify the borders, his soldiers get a rest, get in air defences, put in lots of mine fields, make a big stockpile of tanks and missiles and then invade the rest of Ukraine.
Papers are meaningless to Putin. He broke several treaties by invading Ukraine. There is no other way to guarantee the terms either. If there was Putin could never have invaded Ukraine.
What he did was very illegal. Right now, Putin shouldn't attack Ukraine and Ukraine has every right to attack Russia to hit defensive targets until Russia withdraws. That is the international law according to the UN Charter which Russia signed. Russia should simply immediately leave Ukraine, it's not even in question. Russia also agreed never to invade Ukraine separately under the Budapest memorandum. And then Putin agreed to the Minsk agreement which he also broke. Also Putin personally promised to president Macron that he wouldn't invade Ukraine just before the invasion. And on the day of the invasion he had a meeting set up between the foreign ministers of Russia and USA, Lavrov and Blinken to arrange for Putin to talk to Biden later on. But it was cancelled because Putin invaded Ukraine on the day the meeting was arranged for.
He didn't do this without any response. There have been many ramifications for Russia. All the sanctions. Europe and the USA seizing the billion dollar yachts and any funds and assets of any oligarchs with proven connection to the war. Seizing Russia's foreign reserve of over $300 billion. Withdrawing European companies from Russia. Europe no longer buying Rusan oil or gas.
All the destruction of the vast stockpiles of Soviet missiles and tanks. The destruction of the oil refineries in Russia. Sinking 1/4 of the Black SEa fleet, numerous air defences and very expensive assets destroyed. Loss of reputation of Putin and of Russia. Putin personally indicted as wanted for trial for war crimes, which means he can no longer ever visit countries like Germany or the UK that recognize the International Criminal Court.
Russia doesn't recognize the International Criminal Court. But if Putin ever visits a country that does recognize it including almost all Western European countries, they are required to arrest him. So there's a long list fo countries he can never visit.
The ICC ruling is for crimes by Putin personally not for Russia. A new Russian president would not be arrested, it is Putin personally. If Putin retires as president he still can't visit any of those countries.
So, yes I am sure. There is definitely no possibility of this escalating outside of Ukraine or into a nuclear war. And the war will end eventually. Given the commitment of Europe, no matter what the US does in 2025, this war is only going to end when Ukraine liberates all of the occupied territory, or if Putin decides that he is losing from his side and offers a sensible peace deal that the Ukrainians can accept. This is not up to Zelensky. He says that any peace treaty has to be ratified in a referendum by a majority of the Ukrainian people. So the war can end whenever Putin gives Zelensky a peace treaty that is acceptable to the majority of Ukrainians.
Such a treaty is likely to include surrendering all the territory Russia took since 2022 and depending on the stage of the war, and whether the Ukrainians feel theuy are about to win in the near future, probably also much or all the territory it took in 2014.
Such a treaty would still be far better for Russia in that situation than continuing the war until Russia is forced out. But wars do sometimes end without a treaty, the Korean war is an example, just a ceasefire. So that is another option, that it ends with Ukraine liberating enough territory so that the Ukrainians feel safe against Russian aggression in the future and agree to a ceasefire.
Crimea will be a tricky point in the negotiations because it is very vulnerable to modern weapons if Ukraine liberates the Azov sea coast. So Ukraine will have the military advantage over Russia, able to control all Russia's military transport to and from Crimea by damaging the Kerch bridge so that it is unusable for heavy military supplies, and sinking military landing ships. Ukraine will not want Russia to keep military control of Crimea because this would let it enforce a blockade of the grain corridor for exports to the rest of the world from the Azov sea coast and threaten exports from Odessa too. If Russia surrenders Crimea the Ukrainians are likely to not be so bothered if it wants to retain parts of Donbas and add them to Russia. So that might be a possible frame for a future agreement, to let Ukraine take back Crimea in return for Russia getting part of Donbass.
The amount of leverage Ukraine has in any future agreement like that depends mainly on how much support Ukraine has from Europe. But given the current levels of support it's likely to have the upper hand. China could swing the dynamics the other way if it added the weight of its economy and defence industrial base to Russia's capabilities but China is keeping to what it sees as a neutral stance, which means no overt military support of Russia.
A couple of maps may help:
First to give an idea of the size of Ukraine for American readers, compared to California. It’s a big country
.
Compare Countries With This Simple Tool
And then to show how small Ukraine is compared to Russia.
Since Ukraien complies with the UN charter and has no ambition to take any of Russia, there is no way that Russia is really cornered.
Most Russians really aren’t that bothered about what happens in Ukaine, it’s a minor far away war that Putin has managed to insulate most of them from. The Russian fighters fight because they were ordered to, without really understanding why they fight.
While for Ukraine the objective is simple, just to liberate their country from an occupying force. As soon as they reach the Russian border the war is over for them, in all directions where they are fighting
.
Text on graphic: NATO is so much more powerful than Russia that whether Ukraine wins depends mainly on what NATO is willing to give to Ukraine by way of technology - main reason why Putin bluffs.
Putin is NOT prepared for ANY type of conflict with NATO.
Russia has removed almost all its soldiers from the long border with NATO.
No modern tanks left in Moscow.
Ukraine does not want Rusia to control Crimea after the war ends.
Ukrainian fighters stop when they reach the international border with Russia.
Putin could end the war tomorrow by withdrawing from occupied ukraine.
Ukrainians might well be okay with surrendering part of Donbas but if Russia keeps a military presence in Crimea it can control the grain exports from most of Ukraine.
So negotiations would be tricky if Russia wants to keep any of Ukraine but still possible.
Russia can't be "cornered" by NATO.
Just stopped from expanding West.
For most Russians it is a distant "special operation" with only minor impacts on their lives.
WHY RUSSIA WILL NEVER ATTACK NATO - BECAUSE NATO IS VASTLY MORE POWERFUL LIKE A MIDGET ATTACKING A MAMMOTH WITH SOAP BUBBLES
TEXT ON GRAPHIC:
NASA, huge and powerful but very timid
Russia knows it can't use nukes in reality
Russia tiny and weak, bluffs as meaningless as soap bubbles
Even the Soviet Union had no way to win a war with nukes
Imagine if your team was invisible - how easily you could win a game of football.
That is how much better NATO's F-35 jets are than anything Russia has.
300+ F-35s (USA), 100+ F-35s (Europe).
Russia's 5th generation fighter jet is not ready for war and may never be (expensive technology to develop).
NATO's technology is vastly superior (one of many ways)
NATO: Population 967 million [it's 631 million leaving out USA] NATO: 3.5 million soldiers
Russia: Population 144 million, 0.9% = 1.32 million soldiers
Ukraine: 42 million, 2.1% = 900,000 soldiers
UK war levels of conscription ~12%.
US defence spending $883.7 billion, 3% of GDP
NATO European allies $380 billion, 2% of GDP
Russia: $112 billion, 6% of GDP.
Ukraine: $43.23 billion, 22.1% of GDP
Based on this image created by Dall-E via Bing Chat Generated by Microsoft Copilot
American football photo from: US Navy 090608-N-3283P-018 The Yokosuka Seahawks face off against the Yokohama Harbors during the U.S. Forces Japan-American Football league at Yokosuka Field - Wikimedia Commons
Putin head from this graphic flipped Vladimir Putin (2017-01-17)
Details for the figures on the graphic, see Short debunks For Russia to attack NATO is like a midget attacking a mammoth with soap bubbles - it can't do it
[if it doesn’t jump to the section search the page for “mammoth” or look under world war in the left menu]
ADMIRAL RADAKIN CHIEF OF THE UK ARMED FORCES ABOUT HOW RUSSIA WILL NOT ATTACK THE UK OR NATO
Admiral Radakin’s main point is that Russia is
more dangerous
but less effective
than they realized before the war started. By preparing in a strong way, they make it impossible for Putin to attack NATO
.
Text: The biggest reason that Putin doesn’t want a conflict with NATO is because Russia will lose. And lose quickly.
any Russian assault or incursion against NATO would prompt an overwhelming response.
could draw on the 3.5 million uniformed personnel across the Alliance for reinforcement.
NATO’s combat air forces – which outnumber Russia’s 3 to 1 – would quickly establish air superiority.
NATO’s maritime forces would bottle up the Russian Navy in the Barents and the Baltic,
NATO has four times as many ships and three times as many submarines as Russia.
With a
collective GDP twenty times greater than Russia. And
a total defence budget three-and-a-half times more than Russia and China combined.
The biggest reason that Putin doesn’t want a conflict with NATO is because Russia will lose. And lose quickly
It was supposed to take between 3 days and 3 weeks.
to subjugate Ukraine’s population.
to take about two thirds of Ukraine’s territory.
to stop Ukraine joining NATO and the EU.
Putin has failed in all of these strategic objectives.
Its Air Force has failed to gain control of the air.
Its Navy has seen 25% of its vessels in the Black Sea sunk or damaged by a country without a Navy and Ukraine’s maritime trade is reaching back to pre-war levels.
Russia’s Army has lost nearly 3,000 tanks, nearly 1500 artillery pieces and over 5,000 armoured fighting vehicles.
To pose a realistic threat to NATO’s Eastern flank within the next 2-5 years, Russia will need to
reconstitute her tanks and armoured vehicles,
rebuild her stocks of long-range missiles and artillery munitions and
extract itself from a protracted and difficult war in Ukraine.
[This doesn't mean Russia would attack. This is after the war is over and NATO would always be far stronger than Russia. He means back to how it was in 2022.]
I am not saying that Russia is not dangerous
But at the same time it is also significantly less capable than we anticipated following its disastrous illegal invasion into Ukraine.
And it faces an even stronger straitjacket with the introduction of Finland and Sweden into NATO.
Recent talk of a Britain that is undefended, and an Armed Forces chronically imperilled, is way off the mark.
There are always challenges in running a large organisation that conducts worldwide operations and is as sophisticated as our modern military.
These kinds of challenges apply to militaries everywhere. But
we have the finest people and some of the best equipment.
For longer extracts from his speech:
SHORT DEBUNK: Nothing even remotely resembling a world war situation in Ukraine now or in the future (under World War in the left panel if it doesn’t open to it)
The speech itself is here Chief of the Defence Chatham House Security and Defence Conference 2024 keynote speech
For more on this see my:
SUMMARY GRAPHIC - PUTIN DOES NOT EXPECT WORLD WAR WITH NATO BECAUSE HE HAS REMOVED SO MANY OF HIS CONVENTIONAL FORCES TO FIGHT IN UKRAINE - A NUCLEAR WAR DOESN’T END WITH THE NUKES
This is from 2022. Since then Russia’s ability to stop NATO has got even less as it has gradually moved more and more of its air defences into Ukraine and then lost them to ATACMS, Stormshadows etc
.
Text on graphic. Putin does NOT expect world war with NATO or he would protect Russia as top priority
Only 6,000 soldiers left to protect border with Baltic states + Kaliningrad.
Sent 24,000 to Ukraine.
Putin sent his elite 1st Guards tank army which protects Moscow to Ukraine.
Ukraine destroyed or captured half its tanks in Izium.
“Russia’s conventional force designed to counter NATO is severely weakened”
Emptied 3 out of 11 airbases that protect St Petersburg.
A nuclear war would be the prelude to a conventional war which Russia would lose
Background map from Google maps: Moscow to Kaliningrad
Tweet from the UK Ministry of Defence: