Harlan Ullman, author of the new book, The Fifth Horseman and the New MAD: How Massive Attacks of Disruption Became the Looming Existential Danger to a Divided Nation and the World at Large. Ullman is a Senior Adviser to the Atlantic Council.
The Kremlin has been using the May 9th celebrations, which commemorate the Allied victory over Nazi Germany, to draw parallels between World War II and the invasion of Ukraine.
The building of a narrative of Russia as the victim of the West and the need to defend the country, is gaining momentum, according to the Journal.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that “[T]he forces that have always pursued a policy of containing Russia … they do not want such a huge and independent country that is too big for their ideas. They believe it endangers them simply by the fact of its existence, although this is far from reality. It is they who endanger the world.”
Putin threatened any country that intervenes with retaliatory strikes, saying that Russia has “all the tools for this, such that no one [else] can boast of.”