Throughout its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has repeatedly bluffed the international community with its self-imposed red lines. The threatening rhetoric, particularly regarding Russia’s potential use of nuclear weapons, aims to intimidate Ukraine’s allies into withholding the Western weapons necessary to sustain its defense efforts.
The threat of red lines was Moscow’s opening gambit in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In a televised speech just hours before Russian troops rolled into Ukraine, Putin warned Western nations to back off from supporting Kyiv, threatening “consequences you’ve never seen in your entire history.”
In the months that followed, the Russian political establishment repeatedly waved the “red lines” threat, warning the international community to stay out of supporting Ukraine’s war effort. If any countries crossed this line, Moscow promised severe consequences.
Russia’s never-ending gambit
Despite the threat, the international community rallied behind Ukraine. Countries across the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania have provided hundreds of billions in defense, humanitarian, medical, and financial aid to the Ukrainians.
Since the full-scale invasion in February 2022, the United States has provided over $175 billion in aid to Ukraine, while the EU has contributed more than $200 billion. Many other nations, including Australia, Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom, have pledged billions in assistance. Even post-Soviet states, often influenced by Russia, have stepped in and played a significant role in providing vital humanitarian and medical aid to Ukraine.
Foreign aid has been invaluable. It has enabled the Ukrainian government to resist the Russian invasion while providing crucial support to its citizens in their time of need. Likewise, it has been essential in helping Ukraine stay resilient throughout the war.
Thanks to this assistance, Ukraine has achieved several key successes on the battlefield. Despite Russian warnings, Ukrainian forces pressed on and broke through the Russian offensive.
After the full-scale invasion began in February 2022, Ukraine launched a counteroffensive by spring. Within weeks, Ukrainian forces successfully defended Kyiv from the Russian assault and pushed Russian troops out of central and northern Ukraine, liberating dozens of cities and towns.
The world has missed the Ukrainian reality behind Russia’s bluff
Russia decried the international community for violating its red lines by providing Ukraine with aid, but these threats amounted to little.
The early battlefield successes encouraged international allies to ramp up their support for Ukraine. The new deliveries included American High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), Abrams Tanks, Leopard Tanks, long-range missiles, and additional defense equipment.
In response, the Kremlin resorted to its usual tactics, accusing the international community of crossing multiple red lines and issuing threats of nuclear escalation. However, despite these threats, nothing came of them. To date, Russia has not used any nuclear weapons on Ukraine or any country providing defense, humanitarian, medical, or financial aid to Kyiv.
The empty “red lines” ultimatums persisted into 2023 and 2024. Last year, Ukraine reported liberating more than half of the territories occupied by Russia in southern and northern Ukraine during the full-scale invasion.
A series of consequential counteroffensives dealt record-breaking blows to Russian troops. Since February 2022, Ukrainian forces destroyed approximately two-thirds of Russia’s pre-invasion tank fleet, amounting to around 3,500 tanks.
In 2024, Russia’s “red lines” threats proved useless in not allowing Kyiv to cripple half of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet—a remarkable achievement for a country without a navy. Ukrainian forces also repelled new Russian advances in northeastern Ukraine, further undermining Moscow’s attempts to push forward.
Finally, Ukraine launched a surprise assault into Russia’s Kursk Oblast, seizing over 1,290 square kilometers (500 square miles) of Russian territory, with no promised retaliation from the Kremlin.
The Kursk operation became one of the most devastating blows to Russian manpower in recent months, contributing to over 710,000 casualties sustained by Russian troops in just two and a half years. In both cases, the “red lines” proved meaningless, failing to prevent the Kremlin from catastrophic losses in both equipment and personnel.
The threats proved futile in another critical area where they were heard the loudest: halting the flow of Western military supplies. Over the past two and a half years, Russian President Vladimir Putin and high-ranking Kremlin officials repeatedly played the escalation card to block the supply of strategic Western weapons to Ukraine, starting with F-16 fighter jets.
How the Kremlin’s fake threats enable it real crimes
While the Kremlin cries foul over international assistance to Ukraine, the Russian Federation itself keeps violating numerous red lines set by international law. During the full-scale invasion, Russian troops have committed thousands of human rights violations, as reported by the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other prominent human rights organizations.
The Ukrainian government has reported that Russia has committed over 137,000 war crimes in Ukraine, including sexual violence, torture, and the execution of unarmed Ukrainian civilians. The United Nations backed these claims, stating that the torture of Ukrainians has become a “common practice.”
Deliberate strikes on civilian targets and indiscriminate attacks in densely populated areas, both classified as grave breaches of international humanitarian law, have become trademarks of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Since February 2024, Russian forces have targeted numerous Ukrainian cultural centers, recreational facilities, schools, hospitals, and religious sites. In May 2024 alone, Russian attacks caused damage and destruction to 110 educational institutions and 35 medical facilities, according to the UN.
In addition to these crimes, Russian authorities have carried out mass deportations of Ukrainians from occupied territories, frequently forcibly separating families and placing Ukrainian children up for illegal adoption in Russia.
As of November 2024, Ukrainian authorities have confirmed that Russia has illegally deported 19,546 Ukrainian children, though the true number may be much higher. According to research from the Yale University School of Public Health, the aggressor state is subjecting these children to systematic re-education and militarisation programs designed to forcibly erase their Ukrainian identity.
Furthermore, Russia has waged ecological warfare against Ukraine. The destruction of the Kakhovka Dam in June 2023 flooded 620 square kilometers (240 square miles) of land, including 80,000 hectares of protected areas. In the aftermath of the dam’s collapse, over one million hectares of land became unusable, driving global wheat prices up by 2.4%.
The Kremlin’s weaponization of food didn’t stop there. Russian occupation, mining, and attacks on wheat fields have rendered nearly 20% of Ukraine’s agricultural land unfarmable. As one of the largest agricultural producers in the world, Ukraine’s losses have sent shockwaves through the global market, triggering a food crisis in regions across Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia—areas that are major consumers of Ukraine’s agricultural exports.
Finally, Russia is already threatening nuclear security in the region, even as it pushes the ‘red lines’ bluff. In the early weeks of the full-scale invasion, Russian troops took control of Europe’s largest nuclear facility, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP).
Aside from shelling the station and positioning weapons on its grounds, Russian troops have tampered with the cooling pond connected to the power plant. The head of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also reported that occupying forces placed explosives around the facility.
According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, the blast radius from a potential ZNPP detonation could reach 150 kilometers (93 miles), surpassing the impact of the Chornobyl disaster. Despite warnings from the United Nations and various nuclear organizations, Russia refuses to de-occupy the facility, creating a nuclear risk far more tangible than its unsubstantiated “red lines” threats.
It’s time to end Russia’s strategic deflection
The Russian Federation and Putin’s regime operate under double standards. While the Kremlin has repeatedly sabotaged international assistance to Ukraine, its unsubstantiated “red lines” rhetoric seeks to distract from a clear truth: both Ukraine’s defense and international support are perfectly legitimate under international law, which Russia continues to breach.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine violates the United Nations Charter, which stipulates that members shall refrain from the “use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” Ukraine’s right to self-defense is guaranteed under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, to which both Russia and Ukraine are signatories.
By violating Ukraine’s territorial integrity, Russia has also breached the 1975 Helsinki Final Act and the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, both of which include Russian commitments not to use force against and to respect the territorial integrity of the signatories — Ukraine being one of them.
The international community must stand firm in recognizing the fact that Russia is the sole aggressor in this war. We must ramp up our support for Ukraine and fiercely defend the rules-based international order, calling out Russia’s bluffs and empty threats at every turn. The Kremlin has crossed every red line set by international law, proving itself the only force determined to undermine global peace and security.
Editor’s note. The opinions expressed in our Opinion section belong to their authors. Euromaidan Press’ editorial team may or may not share them.
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