Authoritarians always deny their actions, gaslighting their audience | Joshua Burgin

Another act of sabotage, expected to be linked to Russia, occurred on Tuesday in Germany, on the same day Berlin declared that it had identified the Kremlin as the instigator of an attempted explosive drone attack at the Leipzig/Halle Airport in early August. The Russian Embassy has immediately denied Moscow’s involvement.

“Authoritarian systems always deny. They provoke, and then they deny. ‘Well, we didn't do this. You’re just imagining things.’ (...) They’re effectively gaslighting the audience,” Joshua Burgin, Founder of the Alliance for Global Security, told TVP World, stressing that Russians send this message with the purpose of “creating fear, threatening, menacing, bullying.”

“And as with any schoolyard bully will continue to bully people until somebody, or a group, comes together and punches them in the nose,” Burgin said that an effective way to curb Russian nuclear threats is to “take that off the table.”

“The West should openly articulate: (...) if you go there, it will ultimately get you. Not just us will feel pain. You will be vanished, effectively,” the Alliance for Global Security’s founder said, advising that the message should be accompanied by a message to the Russian people: “Remove your autocrat.”

“One could argue in Russia that the early days of Putin were good for Russia. Now, I don’t think anyone can argue that Putin’s reign is good for anyone in Russia any longer,” he concluded.

Join TVP World’s Benjamin Lee and his guest as they explore how Russia’s hybrid warfare campaign is evolving from disinformation and arson to attacks on critical infrastructure, whether NATO and European leaders are doing enough to deter Moscow’s provocations, and why some analysts believe the Kremlin’s increasingly aggressive behavior reflects growing weakness rather than strength.

Chapters:
00:00 Is Europe’s expanding hybrid security threat a prelude to active conflict?
03:39 Russia’s motives and the use of intimidation
06:45 Airspace incursions and plausible deniability
08:32 Russian denials expose Moscow’s strategic weaknesses
09:28 NATO’s political hesitation and Europe’s strategic autonomy
11:24 Germany’s response and the need for greater urgency

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