{"id":286087,"date":"2025-07-23T20:26:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T20:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/286087\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T20:26:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T20:26:09","slug":"putins-favorite-newspaper-warns-that-europe-could-attack-russia-by-2027-meduza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/286087\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Putin\u2019s favorite newspaper\u2019 warns that Europe could attack Russia by 2027 \u2014 Meduza"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, European leaders agreed<\/a> that the E.U. must be\u00a0\u201cfully capable of\u00a0defending itself against a\u00a0Russian attack by\u00a02030.\u201d NATO has more than doubled<\/a> its defense spending target to\u00a05 percent of\u00a0GDP by\u00a02035. But Western officials sounding the alarm about a\u00a0potential armed conflict between Europe and Russia aren\u2019t\u00a0the only ones issuing such warnings. On\u00a0June 22, the Russian outlet Komsomolskaya Pravda \u2014 \u201cVladimir Putin\u2019s\u00a0favorite newspaper,\u201d according to\u00a0journalists at\u00a0Agentstvo<\/a> \u2014 published an\u00a0article<\/a> projecting that the E.U. could attack Russia as\u00a0soon as\u00a02027. The newspaper lays out three scenarios for war, raising concerns that the Russian media might be\u00a0preparing the Russian public for a\u00a0direct military confrontation with NATO.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0its story, Komsomolskaya Pravda cited a\u00a0handful of\u00a0pro-Kremlin pundits, including Alexander Zimovsky, known for his leadership roles in\u00a0Belarusian state media. Introduced as\u00a0a\u00a0\u201cmilitary expert,\u201d Zimovsky claimed that NATO strategists have concluded that Russia could be\u00a0defeated in\u00a0a\u00a0limited territorial war without triggering a\u00a0nuclear response from Moscow. According to\u00a0Zimovsky, Western officials reached this assessment while allegedly \u201cplanning\u201d Ukraine\u2019s\u00a0counteroffensive in\u00a0the Kharkiv region in\u00a02022 and the incursion into Russia\u2019s\u00a0Kursk region in\u00a02024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Andrey Klintsevich, a\u00a0former Kremlin official who now heads the Center for the Study of\u00a0Military and Political Conflicts, told Komsomolskaya Pravda that the E.U. will try to\u00a0provoke Russia into a\u00a0direct confrontation before 2030. The \u201cmost obvious\u201d future hot spot, he\u00a0warned, is\u00a0the Russian exclave of\u00a0Kaliningrad.<\/p>\n

Scenarios for Western aggression against Russia, according to\u00a0\u201cPutin\u2019s\u00a0favorite newspaper\u201d:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Kaliningrad:<\/strong> In\u00a0this scenario, the E.U. blockades Kaliningrad by\u00a0air and sea, and then ignores Russia\u2019s\u00a0protests and ultimatum to\u00a0stand down. \u201cOur forces would have to\u00a0fight their way through the Suwalki Corridor to\u00a0get to\u00a0our own troops,\u201d Klintsevich explained.<\/li>\n
  2. Moldova:<\/strong> Komsomolskaya Pravda cited warnings<\/a> from Russia\u2019s\u00a0Foreign Intelligence Service that \u201cNATO is\u00a0accelerating Moldova\u2019s\u00a0transformation into a\u00a0military bridgehead.\u201d Sergey Sudakov, an\u00a0associate member of\u00a0Russia\u2019s\u00a0Academy of\u00a0Military Sciences, told the newspaper: \u201cRussia would have to\u00a0respond \u2014 and not only diplomatically. Missile strikes would be\u00a0inevitable, since breaking through a\u00a0land corridor through Odesa and Mykolaiv would require substantial forces and considerable time.\u201d<\/li>\n
  3. \u201cDanger from the North\u201d:<\/strong> Komsomolskaya Pravda dismissed a\u00a0\u201cbattle for the Arctic\u201d as\u00a0unlikely in\u00a0the near future because \u201cChina operates as\u00a0a\u00a0key player in\u00a0the region, and neither Europe nor America will seek confrontation with Beijing in\u00a0the near term.\u201d Zimovsky warned that Finland could prove a\u00a0greater threat to\u00a0Russia: \u201cBefore the Finns were admitted to\u00a0NATO, they were systematically prepared for hypothetical war first with the Soviet Union, then with Russia,\u201d Zimovsky said. \u201cThey have retained good military infrastructure, which the alliance could use for attacks on\u00a0St. Petersburg, Karelia, and the Murmansk region.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Komsomolskaya Pravda\u2019s\u00a0sources argued that victory in\u00a0Ukraine is\u00a0Russia\u2019s\u00a0best means of\u00a0preventing a\u00a0war with NATO. Echoing other hawkish analysts, Andrey Klintsevich also urged the Kremlin to\u00a0resume nuclear weapons field tests, adding that the country has ready sites. \u201cWe\u00a0need to\u00a0film the tests well and get the footage out there,\u201d he\u00a0explained. \u201cSure, they\u2019ll\u00a0accuse us\u00a0of\u00a0breaking the nuclear test ban treaty. But what else can they really do\u00a0to\u00a0us? Keep us\u00a0out of\u00a0the Olympics?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier this year, European leaders agreed that the E.U. must be\u00a0\u201cfully capable of\u00a0defending itself against a\u00a0Russian attack by\u00a02030.\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,7888,7883,7886,7875,7868,7880,7870,7881,7887,7876,7864,7871,7865,7873,7874,7866,7869,7867,7885,7879,7872,7884,7882,7878,7877],"class_list":{"0":"post-286087","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european","11":"tag-7888","12":"tag-7883","13":"tag-7886","14":"tag-7875","15":"tag-7868","16":"tag-7880","17":"tag-7870","18":"tag-7881","19":"tag-7887","20":"tag-7876","21":"tag-7864","22":"tag-7871","23":"tag-7865","24":"tag-7873","25":"tag-7874","26":"tag-7866","27":"tag-7869","28":"tag-7867","29":"tag-7885","30":"tag-7879","31":"tag-7872","32":"tag-7884","33":"tag-7882","34":"tag-7878","35":"tag-7877"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114904431601725907","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}