Nothing in Putin’s nature to suggest he’d cop it sweet

‘You shouldn’t try to corner anyone’: Vladimir Putin, right centre, visits an exhibition on space exploration in Moscow yesterday. PIcture: AFP

Faced with the threat of a US strike on Syria, Russia’s Vladimir Putin has a dilemma: allow US missiles to hit Moscow’s ally without a response or risk a military clash with America.

If driven into a corner by a US attack, Putin will be unlikely to sit back. Inaction would threaten his hard-won gains in Syria, dent Russia’s prestige and erode his tough-guy image. During past crises in recent years, Putin has responded by overturning the chessboard.

“It’s our President who decides the fate of the world!” ultranationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky declared on state television.

When Ukraine’s Kremlin-friendly leader was driven from power in February 2014 by mass protests, Putin reacted to what he described as a US-driven coup by immediately sending troops to overtake Crimea and then annexing the Black Sea peninsula.

He said later he had been ready to put Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert in case of “the most negative developments”. He noted he warned his Western counterparts Russia was ready to fight for Crimea. Moscow followed up by supporting separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, and it didn’t budge in the face of several waves of crippling US and EU sanctions.

When Bashar al-Assad’s ­regime was teetering on the brink of collapse in 2015, it took Putin just a few weeks to mount a military campaign that saved Russia’s longtime ally and eventually turned the tide of war in his favour.

In documentaries, Putin has shared memories of his youth in a working-class neighbourhood of St Petersburg — then called Leningrad. He learned lessons there that have lasted a lifetime. “The streets of Leningrad taught me 50 years ago that when a fight is inevitable, you must strike first,” he said.

He recalled an encounter with a rat in a seedy entrance of his crumbling apartment building. After he cornered the rodent, it turned back on him and attacked. “She ran forward and chased me, jumping from one flight of stairs to another and even tried to leap on my head,” he said. “You shouldn’t try to corner anyone.”

A year ago Putin was nurturing hopes for better ties with the US under Donald Trump. After a chemical weapons attack in Syria, he allowed a US missile strike on a Syrian airbase go unanswered, trying to leave the door open for better relations with Washington. Moscow, which had received an advance tip by the US to get its troops out of harm’s way, limited its response to angry statements of protest. With Kremlin expectations of a cozy relationship with Trump fizzling amid US investigations into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, Putin is unlikely to show such tolerance now.

Weeks before a purported chemical attack by the Syrian government last Saturday, the Russian military warned the West against what it described as false claims of chemical weapons use to strike Syrian facilities.

The head of the general staff General Valery Gerasimov, warned last month a US strike would threaten Russian military personnel in Syria and draw a ­Russian counterstrike against both US missiles and the ships and aircraft launching them. The statement signalled Moscow’s readiness to protect its ally even if it entails a direct clash with the US.

On Thursday Russian UN ­ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said the top priority was to avert war in Syria, but didn’t rule out the possibility of a US-Russian conflict.

“The danger of escalation is higher than simply Syria. We hope that there will be no point of no return — that the US and their allies will refrain from military action against a sovereign state,” he said.

Reflecting the mounting tensions, Russian television offered tips in case of a nuclear attack. Talk shows on state TV featured senior MPS and military experts engaging in heated discussions of possible scenarios of a clash between Russia and the US, all the way to an all-out nuclear war.

Military expert Mikhail Khodarenok argued Russia must ­retaliate to any US strike, saying a failure to do so will badly dent its reputation. “It will mean geo­political shame and colossal reputational losses. We can’t risk losing our face,” he said. “America, get ready for our old reliable 10-megaton nuclear warheads.”

Alexei Pushkov, the head of the information affairs committee in the upper house of parliament, struck a more moderate tone, saying that Russia has powerful conventional weapons to fend off a US attack in Syria. “We must avoid a nuclear conflict,” he said. “We must protect our ally Syria without falling off a nuclear precipice.

AP