Brexit: Vladimir Putin to pounce on bloc’s weakness

The Russian President will see Britain’s exit from Europe as confirmation that the EU is doomed to disintegrate.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will see Britain’s exit from Europe as confirmation that the EU is doomed to disintegrate, says ­security specialist Paul Dibb.

On his way home from a study trip to Russia, Professor Dibb said Mr Putin would see the Brexit as a welcome distraction from Russia’s economic problems, sanctions and criticism of his occupation of eastern Ukraine.

Amid alarm in Europe over Mr Putin’s aggressive treatment of his former Warsaw Pact neighbours, Professor Dibb said he was told in Moscow that Russia could consider exploding a tactical nuclear weapon to stop NATO nations going to the aid of a Baltic nation.

Polish Defence Minister Antoni Maciarwewicz told The Weekend Australian he feared Russia would use a low-yield nuclear weapon to discourage allied ­nations as part of what the Kremlin views as its “de-escalation” strategy.

Mariusz Kordowski, of the ­National Centre for Strategic Studies, said that could be done to stop NATO forces advancing through the Suwalki Gap along Poland’s border with Lithuania — a 100km stretch of land between the Russian “exclave” of Kaliningrad and the Russian ally of Belarus.

Moscow could explode the ­device inside Kaliningrad, claim it was an accident and stress that it occurred on its own terrain.

Australian Strategic Policy Institute head Peter Jennings said Russia’s military posturing was dangerous because it ran the risk of miscalculation and accident.

Kim Beazley, former ambassador to the US, said a threat of conflict in Europe could distract the US from its rebalance to the Asia-Pacific, which was crucial to Australia’s security.

Professor Michael Wesley, who heads the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University, said there was a significant risk of conflict in Eastern Europe and Mr Putin wanted a much weaker EU, NATO dissolved and the US out of Europe. But he said he did not ­believe the Russians would use a nuclear weapon.