The 5 signs Putin is preparing for a bigger war in Europe

Putin’s information offensive, the claim that his residence was attacked by Ukrainian drones this week – of which no material evidence has been made public – has succeeded brilliantly. He won the evident sympathetic outrage of Donald Trump. At the same time, he has upended any chance for the peace proposals discussed by Ukraine and the Europeans.

The faux-rage reaction from the Putin home team of Lavrov, his deputy minister Sergei Ryabkov, and spokesperson Dmitry Peskov is an overt threat that the war in Ukraine goes on. Russia is upping its claims – demanding now the handing over of two more oblasts, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, as well as the Donbas and Crimea.

There is also a thinly veiled threat to western Europe, UK included, that the war across Eastern Europe is to deepen and widen. This means that Nato member states are being threatened – the three Baltic nations bordering Russia, Finland, Poland and Norway. Finland and Sweden have warned that civilian populations need to be ready for war. Three of Norway’s most northern districts, stretching to the common Arctic border with Russia, have drawn up evacuation plans.

Britain is also in the target area.

The other major piece in the information contest with Russia was the picture in The Sunday Times of a British frigate closing with the Russian survey and underwater commando ship Yantar, in UK home waters. Watching the scene is a British Astute class hunter-killer submarine. Hitherto, the Ministry of Defence had only released photos of the frigate closing with the Yantar. The revelation that the submarine was following up indicates a far more serious game is afoot.

The Yantar is the principal surface vessel of Russia’s directorate of submarine intelligence service, which goes under the acronym Gugi. It started in the Cold War, but has been boosted by Putin to conduct underwater surveillance – especially of communication cables, oil and gas pipelines. The Yantar has been poking around British home waters for several years – the Irish coastguard noted its unhealthy interest in transatlantic cabling as it sat off Limerick for a month two summers ago.

The Yantar can launch underwater surveillance and attack drones. The most potent platform in the Gugi armoury is the submarine Belgorod – the largest sub in the world currently and remarkably elusive to western Nato tracking and monitoring. It can deploy the Poseidon, a nuclear–driven drone with a range, allegedly, of 10,000km. According to a recent Putin boast, it is designed to carry a nuclear warhead. This is in the future. Its most worrying potential now, and that of the Yantar, is its ability to launch a whole range of attack and surveillance underwater drones.

It is this feature of the Gugi fleet of surface and underwater vessels, manned and unmanned and of different size and range, that preoccupies the Royal Navy and its new commander, General Sir Gwyn Jenkins. Recently, he has been on an information offensive to explain why he is ordering the Navy’s own surface and submarine drones to be deployed now, and why he is joining Norway in supplying sensors and vessels to bolster the Atlantic Bastion concept to monitor malign Russian activity through the Faroes and Iceland gaps in the North Atlantic.

The Kremlin team is using the fable of the drone attack on Putin’s residence in Novgorod as a means of detaching Trump from supporting Europe and Nato’s continuing support for Ukraine. The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov couldn’t clarify the number of drones in the attack – Lavrov said it was 91, the Kremlin a mere 41 – said the “evidence didn’t matter”. Peskov then said the terms for peace had now “hardened” – and they had gone back to the initial demand in 2021, repeated in summer 2022 after the invasion – that Ukraine should be “denazified”, with fresh elections now leading to regime change to a puppet president in Kyiv toeing the Moscow line.

Trump’s account of the news that Putin’s home had been attacked is telling: “You know who told me about it? President Putin, early in the morning, he said he was attacked. It’s no good.” Accordingly, Europe must now have its own workaround plan for getting peace and security in Ukraine.

First, plans have been announced for further call-ups of reserves. Battlefield losses are still huge – up to 400,000 this year alone and more than 1500 a day in the Donbas this month. Reservists will be sent to the front line – contrary to normal rules of service. Putin may be contemplating raising another army of up to one and a half million over two years – and prepared to lose a large part of it.

Second, the near abroad – the forward stationing of the Oreshnik missile – hypersonic and with nuclear potential to Belarus, aiming into Europe. But the weapon is not proven yet.

Third, in the Baltic states. Pressure is building on Latvia already. Its Russian minority, a quarter of the population, is bombarded and hassled by Russian propaganda and influencers. Approach roads have been constructed lately from Russia to the borders of Estonia and Latvia.

Fourth, there are ambiguous threats and pressure on frontline Nato states – pushing unwanted migrants and refugees to the border in Finland – compromising border posts and patrols in Norway and Estonia.

Fifth – the increased tempo of Gugi activities monitoring vital underwater infrastructure from Norway across the western Baltic and the wider region of British and Irish home waters.

The continuous probing will be matched by mysterious drone activity round ports and airports – though these have slackened in the month of December. The threat of hostile cyber activity persists, usually carried out by proxies and third parties. They are numerous – 50,000 a year in the UK; most are ambiguous and deniable. The Jaguar Land Rover attack cost the company £1.5bn and the economy £5bn and was officially unattributable, according to Whitehall.

The lethal mixture of threat and risk now finds the UK with its defences largely unprepared – hence the warning note from General Jenkins and the Navy. Despite promising big in the June Defence Review, the armed services are depleted and underfunded. The British Army has equipment for a force of only 20,000 and its main equipment programmes for artillery, tanks, and infantry carriers are now on hold – largely due to Whitehall confusion and indecision and lack of funds. The RAF is short of trained pilots and the Royal Navy doesn’t have enough sailors to man its full roster of ships.

Biggest concern from what might now be dubbed the great Novgorod drone hoax is what it says about Putin’s fresh burst of hubris. He risks now a direct confrontation with Nato, whether in the Baltic, the Arctic or across the Mediterranean. This would mean the invocation of Article 5 of the Atlantic Treaty, which states that if one ally is attacked, all allies are obliged to come to its defence.

For Britain, this would raise a question about its ability to do what’s asked. For the USA and Trump, it would raise the issue of commitment. Some Trump supporters have tried to argue that the terms of Article 5 are discretionary – and should only apply to European partners if only one of them is attacked. The terms of the treaty are explicit – mutual defence of all 32 Nato allies is an obligation by a treaty ratified by Congress. Bad news for Donald Trump, whatever his phone buddy from Moscow might tell him.