The Russian authorities are eager to demonstrate compliance with certain rules in the war in Ukraine. The West has believed since the beginning of the SMO, and in fact since 2014, with the annexation of Crimea, that Russia had broken the (beneficial to the West) rules. And even if it did not, it would mean nothing. Therefore, the West is playing without rules against Russia.

It is important for the West to defeat and ‘decolonise’ Russia – at the very least to weaken and subjugate it, i.e. to bring it back to the 1990s. What price can be paid for this? Anything but a direct nuclear confrontation. Anything else could be used.

Instead, Russia is building its own autonomous system of rules, which the West does not take into account at all. And it does not even pretend to take them into account. The West interprets any self-restraint on Moscow’s part in the war as weakness. And it continues to insist.

Ukraine has long acted irrationally. The more it loses, the more it bites. It is a form of animal rage, so lethal are the raccoons and squirrels that have escaped from the woods and are pursued by a black frenzy. There are no rules here. That is why, for the Ukrainian rulers, provoking a nuclear conflict is not only permissible, but also desirable. What to take from a rabid, poisonous squirrel?

To proceed properly, we need to build a more realistic call-and-response system. Before using TNWs and SNWs (tactical and strategic nuclear weapons), there is still a broad spectrum of possibilities for escalating conflict with conventional weapons. And many registers have not yet been exploited. This stems from the rules. The rules do not allow it. But if the rules only exist for one side, and simply do not exist for the West, let alone for the Kiev obsessives, then it is no longer about rules.

A language that only one participant in the dialogue understands serves no purpose. After all, no one inside the country needs or understands these rules.

Simply threatening that we will respond if necessary, and that we have what we need, is clearly not enough. We have to respond. If we have what we need, now is the time. But if we have nothing, we can do it – do it or find something. Preferably difficult, targeted and very frightening. There is no cure for anger. We must proceed from this.

Crimea will be attacked and so will our old territories. They are already attacking.

We will not reach the West yet. Still the question of the TNWs and NSNWs. This is the last topic. Not the penultimate.

But there is something we can do against the madmen. I think this is a case where if we can do it, we will do it.

Otherwise, our threats are becoming too light.

We are holding the front, and thanks to the heroic efforts of our men, it is difficult, but we are holding, and the enemy’s losses are huge, but something else is needed here. It would be better if it were sharp, unexpected, hard and fatal for the enemy. Victory is above any rule, which in our situation makes no sense. And nothing less than Victory will satisfy us.

Translation by Lorenzo Maria Pacini