It is expressed by artificial intelligence. For years, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been mixing spin and lies, making it difficult to distinguish between evasion and fiction, and weaponizing the toxic mix to blackmail, divide and confuse his enemies. In recent days, Russia pulled out of the Black Sea Grains Agreement, then rejoined it and issued threats of nuclear attack before reversing course to support non-proliferation language. This week, Putin ordered his forces to withdraw from Kherson just weeks after declaring that the city would be part of Russia “forever”. How should the world interpret Putin’s wildly contradictory statements, actions and messages? And when it comes to the use of nuclear weapons, does Russia’s latest denial provide any reassurance? “For Russia, inconsistency is an integral part of foreign policy strategy, particularly under Putin,” noted Fiona Hill, a former official at the US National Security Council. Hill was commenting in 2013, a year before Russia illegally annexed Crimea after denouncing the “little green men” who seized and blockaded Simferopol International Airport and military bases on the Ukrainian peninsula. In January and February, less than two weeks before intense rockets rained down on Kharkiv and Kiev’s airports were hit by waves of pre-dawn cruise missiles, the Kremlin and its top officials dismissed any suggestions that Putin intended to invade and to conquer Ukraine. The troop build-up along Ukraine’s eastern and northern borders was part of regular military exercises, they said. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called “absurd” accusations that Russia harbored any aggressive plans. “We learn from the American newspapers that we are going to attack Ukraine,” Zakharova scoffed. Her boss, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, insisted that “there will be no war”, assuring that all of Russia did not want it. Was this a blatant lie designed to deceive and maintain an element of surprise or a genuine policy reversal? It’s hard to say – and maybe that’s the intention. Or it may simply be the West’s failure to understand how Russian politics is being shaped, some seasoned Putin watchers say. They argue that Western governments struggle to make sense of the sudden reversals and are too often unable to distinguish between such policy reversals and deliberate deception. “I think he’s doing some of it as he goes along, some of it is out of desperation, but he’s also looking for openings in the West,” said David Cramer, who was assistant secretary of state in the administration of US President George W. Bush. The result is—regardless of the motivations for the changes in direction—everyone is wondering what Putin will do. Perhaps Winston Churchill’s definition of Russia as “an enigma, wrapped in a mystery, within an enigma” has never been truer since the wartime British leader struggled to analyze Joe Stalin. Western politicians, who must formulate strategies, cannot afford to simply throw up their hands and muster all the inconsistencies, lies and spin as part of a deliberate Kremlin policy. They might miss something important and revealing if they did. “Overall, Putin thinks where there’s chaos, there’s opportunity, so confusion and deception are all part of his ‘spy training,’” said Orysia Lutsevych, a researcher at Britain’s Chatham House. Even so, there are different reasons for shifts and inconsistencies, he warned. “In some cases, Putin is testing the limits of what is possible, as with the grain deal, and if the opposing side shows strength and determination, he does a reversal.” Putin ordered his forces to withdraw from Kherson just weeks after declaring the city would be part of Russia ‘forever’ | Bulent Kilic/AFP via Getty Images But he believes Putin’s move to order a partial mobilization of reserves in September after insisting there would be none “was a domestic deception operation. he was mobilizing in secret for a long time and made it public when it was appropriate.” The White House obviously doesn’t want to take too many chances. According to recent reports, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has held talks with senior Kremlin aides aimed at reducing the risk of the war in Ukraine escalating into a nuclear conflict. According to Emily Ferris, an analyst at the Royal United Services Institute, a British defense and security think tank, Putin’s nuclear threats in recent weeks were a way of “escalating to test the waters and see what the response would be.” He recently dismissed the threats, claiming he had “never talked about using nuclear weapons” and that a nuclear strike on Ukraine would make neither political nor military sense. Ferris and other Putin watchers believe the setback this time was the result of pressure from Beijing. “Given the concerns from China, Putin has probably noted the limits of that rhetoric and now he’s moved on from it and now they’ve clearly said they want to avoid any kind of nuclear conflict, so it’s revealed some of the leverage that China has to help de-escalation here,” he said. Ferris said the decision to invade Ukraine was likely made at the last minute, which would be “quite in line with Putin’s tendency to put off big decisions.” And when it comes to operational issues, there is an underlying “general incompetence and ineffectiveness among the security systems in Russia that should not be underestimated,” he said. “Putin sometimes keeps away from the details,” forcing him to intervene afterward, he added. Andrei Hilarionov, Putin’s former senior policy adviser and now a rival, believes there is less logic than meets the eye when it comes to sudden policy changes. He said: “He seems to have become very nervous because if he doesn’t lose the war, he certainly won’t win either.”
