Russian Bear Or Paper Tiger? Putin Is The Ultimate Stress Test For NATO

-Analysis-

BERLIN — It was a remark that struck a nerve in Moscow, and it struck hard. Earlier this week, Donald Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in New York. Soon thereafter, Trump posted a barbed comment on his Truth Social platform: Russia, he said, is “just a paper tiger.” Meaning a true military power would have won the war in Ukraine long ago.

In recent months, Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly brushed aside Trump’s taunts, such as the charge that he talks “a lot of bullshit.” He dismissed them as nothing new, devoid of substance, and ultimately meaningless. This time, however, he sent his spokesman Dmitry Peskov to the press with a clumsy rebuttal: Russia is no tiger at all, but a real bear, he said. And bears are not made of paper.

The exchange is striking because over the past few months, and especially over the past few weeks, Putin has done much to present himself not as a toothless paper tiger but as a genuine menace to Europe.

For days, Danish military and security authorities have been tracking drones of unknown origin in their airspace, forcing airports to close temporarily. The sole suspect: Russia. Meanwhile, three Russian MiG-31s spent 12 minutes illegally in Estonian airspace, prompting NATO to hold consultations under Article 4. At the end of last week, two Russian aircraft buzzed the German frigate Hamburg at less than 100 meters altitude, a reckless and pointless maneuver. The most serious incident so far: when 19 Russian drones penetrated deep into Polish territory, forcing F-16 jets to scramble and intercept several of them.

Such escalations are often seen as a way of testing NATO, its cohesion, and the alliance’s military capacity. But Putin’s motives may be more specific than simply probing the limits.

Nuclear threats no longer work

To understand Putin’s motives, it helps to look at recent developments in the war in Ukraine. In recent weeks, Ukraine has intensified strikes deep into Russian territory. Refineries, pumping stations, and substations have been going up in flames almost daily. Airports in Moscow and other major Russian cities have been forced to shut down. In occupied Crimea, fuel shortages have already appeared at gas stations after repeated attacks on refineries.

Ukraine is carrying out these attacks with drones financed in part by European countries, including Germany. About a month ago, Kyiv announced it would build missiles with a range of up to 3,000 kilometers. The necessary fuel will be produced, among other places, in a plant in Denmark.

“The Russian leadership seems convinced that NATO states are largely responsible for these strikes deep into Russia,” says Alexander Gabuyev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. At the same time, Western arms manufacturers supplying Ukraine have so far been considered off-limits to Russian retaliation.

Those nuclear threats were meant to instill fear. But over time their effect faded.

That is precisely where Putin appears to be aiming his provocations, such as drone flights. “Putin wants to show that this kind of support for Ukraine will not come without damage or cost to Europeans,” explains Gabuyev. Europe should feel the war directly when airports are forced to close or fighter jets scramble after drones. In this sense, the current escalation is the next step after Putin’s now familiar nuclear saber-rattling of recent years.

Those nuclear threats were meant to instill fear of Russia and limit arms supplies to Ukraine. But over time their effect faded. Leading Russian voices, such as foreign policy strategist Sergei Karaganov and Putin adviser Dmitry Trenin, have already written off nuclear deterrence in its current form as a failure: too dangerous and therefore not credible.

A little over a year ago, Trenin summed up his alternative proposals for Putin in an article in Russia in Global Affairs. The key goal, he argued, must be to prevent deeper NATO involvement in the war in Ukraine. Western leaders had to be made to understand that in the event of “conflict with Russia,” they could not remain in “comfortable and protected conditions,” Trenin wrote. In the same piece, he recommended non-nuclear strikes against Western drones in the Black Sea, attacks on logistics hubs in Europe crucial to Ukraine’s supply lines, and cyberattacks against “critical infrastructure in Europe and North America.”

For a long time, such writings were seen as hybrid warfare in the propaganda sphere, intended to frighten the West. Putin, by contrast, benefited by appearing more reasonable than those around him. Yet today, it seems the Kremlin may be taking at least some of these radical ideas seriously.

Blaming the West for everything

Putin’s aggressive provocations are also likely to resonate with Russians at home. Although state media dismiss the latest incidents as accidents or fabrications by Western journalists, the propaganda groundwork has long been laid, even without an explicit claim of responsibility.

According to Levada, the last major independent polling institute in Moscow, around 54% of Russians believe the war in Ukraine could escalate into an “armed conflict between Russia and NATO countries.” Among Putin’s broad base of supporters, the blame lies squarely with the West. The only country whose image has improved is the United States, since Trump took office.

The state-media-fueled hostility is now directed at European countries such as Germany, Britain, and France, which in Russia are viewed as Ukraine’s main backers. In a Levada poll in May, 55% of respondents named Germany as the country most hostile to Russia, ahead of Britain and Ukraine.

Even in the months leading up to the war, most Russians already blamed the West for the looming escalation, recalls Levada head Denis Volkov in an interview with ZEIT. “Those who supported Putin told us then that the country had to defend itself somehow,” Volkov says. The same sentiment later appeared regarding Putin’s nuclear threats. While polls showed a large majority rejecting the use of nuclear weapons, “in group discussions we repeatedly heard that these threats were correct and necessary to bring the enemy to its senses,” Volkov explains. The same may apply to the recent provocations. “People do not want another war, of course, but a small escalation as a tactical move seems acceptable to many.”

Boomerang effect

The question is how effective Putin’s escalation tactics will be and whether they risk sparking a real confrontation with Russia.

So far, there is little evidence of that. Russia’s army is almost entirely absorbed by the war in Ukraine. To speed up its sluggish offensive on the front, military planners have recently redeployed fresh reserves to the Donbass region. New barracks and bases are being built in northwestern Russia, but most of them are for the post-war period in Ukraine and were planned as a response to Finland’s accession to NATO. They remain largely empty. Almost all new recruits are being sent directly to Ukraine.

Europe, by contrast, is moving cautiously. Some politicians, such as Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski and Czech President Petr Pavel, have urged the downing of Russian jets in case of further airspace violations. NATO militaries, however, continue to regard shooting down aircraft as a last resort. None of the known incidents with Russian planes have been truly dangerous or serious enough to justify such an escalation to protect civilians or military personnel.

“Rather than a real conflict, Russia will likely keep operating in the gray zone,” says Gabuyev. Nuclear weapons in the arsenals of Russia and NATO countries continue to make war extremely unlikely. It is also doubtful that Putin will achieve more with these new aggressive tactics than he did with his previous threats. “Europe may in fact increase its support for Ukraine out of fear of Russia,” Gabuyev concludes. In that case, Putin’s aggression would once again have backfired.