Intimidating the West to stop Ukraine support Putin’s only hope to win | News In Depth

Suspected Russian sabotage across Europe is testing how governments respond to hybrid threats, while nationalists and anti-establishment parties are challenging the political consensus in aiding Ukraine.

“I think it reflects the fact that Putin’s only path to victory in Ukraine at the moment is to intimidate the West and to convince European societies that it's not worth supporting Ukraine anymore,” said Adam Jasser, TVP World’s News Director. “So his game is basically to outlast the West and to hope that European societies will tire of the war, (that they) will be frightened by these hybrid attacks.”

Jasser does not expect Russia to cross a threshold that would trigger a NATO response. Instead, he argues Moscow is focused on exploiting Western democracies from within.

He argues Germany is a key target for Russian hybrid efforts because Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government struggles in the polls while the pro-Russian, anti-Ukrainian AfD gains support, particularly in eastern Germany.

“He’s trying to stoke trouble inside Germany because he realizes that Germany's support for NATO, for Ukraine, is crucial to sustaining this effort,” he said. “Incidentally, Putin was a KGB officer in East Germany. So he can probably feel the mood in East Germany and hope that this will be the spark that will undo German support for Ukraine.”

Jasser also rejected the idea that NATO enlargement is Putin’s primary concern.

“I think the real enemy for Putin is the European Union and European unity because in economic terms, the European Union is simply hugely more powerful than Russia,” he said, adding that Europe’s rearmament could eventually give it conventional military superiority. “So for him, the strategic objective is to lead to a breakup of the European Union.”

But why is Ukraine’s prospective EU membership such a threat to Putin?

“Ukraine cannot be independent, cannot be prosperous, because, this is the irony of it: Putin is not really creating prosperity for average Russians,” Jasser said. “And at the same time, Putin can see that the former Soviet or Russian satellites in Central and Eastern Europe have all become prosperous thanks to democracy, thanks to joining the West.”

“He’s desperate to prevent Ukraine from joining because that would show Russians that an alternative path is possible. He cannot allow a democratic Ukraine to win,” Jasser concluded.

Join News in Depth’s host Benjamin Lee and his guest as they explore whether Europe is doing enough to deter Russia’s hybrid attacks, why Eurosceptic parties are gaining ground across the continent, and what a weakening of European unity could mean for Ukraine’s future.

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