Putin’s ‘New Hard Line’?

Several astute observers of international relations, diplomacy, Russian-Wesatern relations, and the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War -- for example, the perspicacious Alexander Mercouris – are arguing that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s January 15^th speech during his acceptance of credentials of new ambassadors to Moscow signalled a new hard line. The new line was in these observers’ view evident in Putin’s insistence that the West engage Russia in talks on a new security architecture for Europe. I, for one, am unable to see in this speech anything representing a new hard line. Rather, I see any manifestation of a possible new hard line in the escalation of Russia’s air war against Ukraine, but even here I doubt the significance of any Kremlin intensification of its war effort and its connection with recent Ukrainian- Western escalations.

The ‘new hard line’ version is that it is Moscow’s response to the attempted drone assassination of Putin at his Valdai residence, where some sources claim he was not located at the time when Kiev launched some 91 drones in the direction of the residence, as well as to the US-UK-Ukrainian war on tankers carrying Russian oil and the New Year’s Eve Ukrainian attack on a hotel in Khorly, Kherson region that killed some 25 civilians (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/01/new-year-drone-strike-kills-24-in-russian-occupied-ukraine-moscow-says). It is further claimed that Putin was holed up in consultations for the first decade of January to develop a new hard line and response to these attacks.