Thread by @KellerZoe

Imperial Russia has called the West’s bluff. There is an awful lot of land in Europe that a Russian imperialist might define as being “historically Russia”. telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/2…

Putin made plain how he sees the world. Ukraine — he declared — is made up of “what was historically Russia”, its claim to statehood has never been legitimate. The nationhood of a country that voted by >90% to become independent after the USSR fall, is airbrushed out of history.

The old USSR, he argued, wasn’t ambitious enough. All the territories it controlled as Soviet Republics should always have just been Russian provinces — he declared. Putin isn’t nostalgic for the heyday of the USSR. He’s reaching for the tsars.

Taken seriously, it implies a breath-taking shopping list. 3 Baltic states, Finland, much of Poland, Moldova and Georgia. Some parts of Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan might all need to change maps. Why not even Alaska?

Where does it end? There is an awful lot of land in Europe that a Russian imperialist might define as being “historically Russia”. How much of it will Putin generously decide to reunite with the motherland?

The answer surely depends on Nato: Putin’s territorial demands ultimately only end at the point where Nato countries are willing to make them end. That is the logic of his angry address to Russia and the world on Monday.

The pathetic reality is the West is turning up to a gunfight with a spreadsheet. But Russia has spent the years since the 2014 Crimea sanctions making itself almost financially impregnable: with a supply of $ from its oil and gas sales, it hardly needs to borrow externally.

Berlin has surpassed its aid package of 5,000 helmets by declaring that Nord Stream 2 the certification process has been suspended, but Berlin has not said it will be legally unwinding the pipeline (the construction is already complete). Will Germany dismantle the thing?

We have spent years saying things we don’t mean, and Moscow is calling our bluff. Ukraine was never a Nato member, but it supposedly enjoyed a West guarantee of its territorial integrity.

Let’s deliver the “severe” sanctions our governments have talked so much about and then work out what Nato’s new red line really is and how the alliance will credibly defend it. Putin has staked a claim to imperial domination. Nato must answer him with more than empty words.